KINSHASA: Voters
in the Democratic Republic of Congo went to the polls yesterday in elections
that will shape the future of their vast, troubled country, amid fears that
violence could overshadow the ballot. Millions of electors are choosing a
successor to President Joseph Kabila, who is stepping down two years after his
term limit expired - a delay that sparked bloody clashes and revived traumatic
memories of past turmoil. The vote gives DR Congo the chance of its first
peaceful transfer of power since it gained independence from Belgium in 1960.

But analysts say
the threat of violence is great, given the many organisational problems and
wide-ranging suspicion of Kabila. The election's credibility has already been
strained by repeated delays, the risk of hitches on polling day and accusations
that electronic voting machines will produce a rigged result. On the eve of the
vote, talks between key candidates to avert post-election violence broke down.

Opposition
frontrunners Martin Fayulu and Felix Tshisekedi refused Saturday to sign a
proposed peace pledge, saying election officials had failed to make suggested
changes to the text. The announcement came after the pair had met with the
Independent National Election Commission (CENI) as well as Kabila's preferred
successor, Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary. The UN, the United States and Europe have
loudly appealed for the elections to be free, fair and peaceful - a call echoed
on Wednesday by the presidents of Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and the
neighboring Republic of Congo.

Opposition
chance?

Polling stations
opened in the east of the country a little after their scheduled time of 0400
GMT and an hour later in Kinshasa and the west. Kabila voted in the capital
along with his family, just minutes before Shadary also cast his ballot in the
same polling station. "I feel liberated, freed," said Victor Balibwa,
a 53-year-old civil servant and one of the first voters to cast his ballot in
Lubumbashi, the country's mining capital in the southeast. "I'm excited to
vote, to be able to choose at last. It's my first election," an
18-year-old student named Rachel told AFP in the eastern city of Goma, an
opposition stronghold.

Some polling
stations opened late in Goma and elsewhere. In one, electoral officials were
still adjusting voting machines and in another a technician needed to restart a
machine that had broken down, an AFP reporter saw. The last polls are due to
close at 1600 GMT. Provisional results are due on Jan 6. Twenty-one candidates
are contending the presidential election, which is taking place simultaneously
with ballots for the national legislature and municipal bodies.

The frontrunners
include Kabila's champion Shadary, a hardline former interior minister facing
EU sanctions for a crackdown on protesters. His biggest rivals are Fayulu,
until recently a little-known legislator and former oil executive, and
Tshisekedi, head of a veteran opposition party, the UDPS. If the elections are
"free and fair," an opposition candidate will almost certainly win,
according to Jason Stearns of the Congo Research Group, based at the Center on
International Cooperation at New York University.

Opinion polls
indicate Fayulu is clear favorite, garnering around 44 percent of voting
intentions, followed by 24 percent for Tshisekedi and 18 percent for Shadary,
he said. However, "the potential for violence is extremely high,"
Stearns warned. Between 43 and 63 percent of respondents said they would not accept
the results if Shadary is declared winner, he said. And between 43 percent and
53 percent said they did not trust DRC's courts to settle any election dispute
fairly.

However, Kabila
said he was confident "everything will go well on Sunday". "I
want to reassure our people that measures have been taken with the government
to guarantee the safety of all sides, candidates, voters and observers
alike," he said in his end-of-year address broadcast Saturday.

Frail giant

Eighty times the
size of its former colonial master Belgium, the DRC covers 2.3 million sq km in
the middle of Africa, behind only Algeria in area on the continent. Gold,
uranium, copper, cobalt and other riches are extracted from its soil, but
little of that wealth comes down to the poor. In the last 22 years, the country
has twice been a battleground for wars drawing in armies from around central
and southern Africa. The legacy of that era endures today in the DRC's eastern
border region, where ruthless militias have carried out hundreds of killings.

Insecurity and an
ongoing Ebola epidemic in part of North Kivu province, and communal violence in
Yumbi, in the southwest of the country, prompted the authorities to postpone
the elections there until March. Kabila said the vote would take place "as
soon as the situation allows it". Around 1.25 million people, out of a
national electoral roll of 40 million, are affected. No explanation has been
offered as to whether or how the delayed vote will affect the official outcome,
and legal experts say the postponement is unconstitutional. - AFP