Burned ballots add to Congo vote count woes

Used and unused ballots were burned alongside other election material outside an election office

A suspicious fire at a major Kinshasa election centre during a third day of chaotic poll counting yesterday deepened concerns over the transparency of the results of Congo's first free elections in over 40 years.

Used and unused ballots were burned alongside other election material outside an election office that was meant to process one quarter of the capital's votes.

Democratic Republic of Congo held presidential and parliamentary elections on Sunday, hoping the vote would draw a line under the African nation's 1998-2003 war, which killed some four million people.

Voting took place amid relative calm but the days after the poll, which cost over $450 million and was protected by the United Nations' largest peacekeeping mission, have been marked by complaints and threats of challenges to the results.

At the centre in N'Djili, a popular neighbourhood in the capital, election workers said they had burned empty ballot boxes to clear up rubbish.

Election officials at the office were due to process votes coming from 1 400 polling station, one quarter of Kinshasa's ballots, before passing them to compilation centres for cross checking and safekeeping in case the results are challenged. One witness said that earlier children loaded ballots into UN trucks. "It certainly raises concerns about the credibility and transparency of the process," the observer added. "It plays into the hands of those who question this process."

Congo's independent election commission was not immediately available for comment.

One of Congo's former rebel groups has complained of fraud during the polls. A major opposition party boycotted the election saying it would not be free and fair.

Observers said the voting might have gone well on the day but that the process of collecting results from some 50 000 polling stations would be time-consuming and had become chaotic.

Joseph Kabila, Congo's president, is favourite to win the polls but he is being challenged by former rebel Jean-Pierre Bemba.

17 killed in air crash
Meanwhile, seventeen people died in a plane crash in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo yesterday, a United Nations spokesperson said.

The Russian-made Antonov 28 aircraft was flying in low cloud as it approached the airport at Bukavu in the South Kivu province when it clipped a mountainside and plunged into the forest in flames, the spokeswoman said.

All fourteen passengers and three crew were killed when the plane crashed some 15km short of the airport runway, she said. - Reuters