DRC Election a Success

The first multi-party election in more than 40 years in the Democratic Republic of Congo was reportedly peaceful and largely free of incident.

By all accounts Sunday's vote in the Democratic Republic of Congo was a tremendous success that international observers view as an example to the rest of the African continent. The elections mark a hopeful new beginning for a country that is still recovering from decades of corruption and a 1998-2003 war that saw approximately 4 million deaths. Stationed at the 50,000 polling stations across the country were 17,000 United Nation peacekeepers, 1,100 European Union troops and members of the Congolese police.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, Jendayi Frazer was so confident in the process that she has already begun look ahead to future elections. "Now we have done Congo, we can do an election anywhere on the continent," she said. October's scheduled elections in Ivory Coast, a country that is still attempting to organize its first polls since their 2002-2003 war, will be the next challenge.

There were a few isolated incidents of violence on Sunday but nothing that truly interfered with the estimated 80 percent voter turnout with 25 million voters. Former rebel leaders Jean-Pierre Bemba and Azarias Buberwa attempted to employ old political stunts by declaring that they would refuse to accept results if they deemed them to be unfair, a ploy that could then make it necessary for the African Union to investigate. But if everything went as peacefully as reported, there will be no need to contest the results. However, the national electoral commission says that if no candidate receives more than 50 percent of the vote, then there will be a run-off election on October 29 between the two leading candidates.