CONGO: Kinshasa breathed a huge sigh of relief yesterday as it became apparent that the country's presidential elections were heading for a second round run-off on October 29th.
Most voters in the west of the country, including the capital, will be happy with the prospect of a second-round run-off.
The result will be massively disappointing to voters in the east, however, after they backed outgoing president Joseph Kabila overwhelmingly in the July 30th elections.
With results published for 168 of 169 electoral districts, Mr Kabila had 44.5 per cent of the vote compared to 20.1 per cent for former rebel leader and vice- president Jean-Pierre Bemba.
Former 1960s revolutionary Antoine Gizenga won 13 per cent of the vote, putting him in third place in the presidential race.
The only electoral district not to report a result by yesterday evening was the northern Katangan city of Manono, where support for Kabila was also expected to be overwhelming.
It was already certain by yesterday evening that Mr Kabila and Mr Bemba would have to battle it out in a presidential run-off, regardless of the Manono result. Seventeen million valid votes had already been counted, from a total of 18 million cast, putting the end result beyond doubt.
Former army chief Joseph Kabila became president after his father was murdered in 2001, in the midst of a war that erupted in 1998. That war involved all Congo's neighbouring countries and led to an estimated four million deaths, mostly from starvation and disease and concentrated in the east of the country.
Jean-Pierre Bemba was also involved in that war, at the head of a rebel movement that fought from a power base in Congo's northwestern province of Equateur.
A few hours before the election results were due to be announced in Kinshasa, sporadic gunfire was heard around the administrative and commercial district of Gombe, near the headquarters of the independent electoral committee. UN peacekeepers deployed white armoured personnel carriers in central Kinshasa, where announcement of the election results was due to go ahead as planned.
Kinshasa city was "absolutely pivotal" in the overall result, according to one western diplomat. The outgoing president won less than 250,000 votes in the capital compared to one million there for Jean-Pierre Bemba.
Mr Bemba was also hugely popular in his native province of Equateur.
Kinshasa's citizens had been bracing themselves for at least some trouble in the capital in the event of a first-round victory for Mr Kabila.
Several international observers also noted that a second-round run-off would help legitimise an incoming president.
"I think the result is good for the country. The result lends credibility to the political process because it proves that Kabila, even with all the State's resources at this disposal, could not cheat in the election - and the same goes for Bemba," said the western diplomat.
In the southeastern city of Manono, meanwhile, where Irish aid agency Goal is providing basic health and other services, the result was greeted with disappointment. "People here were all set for a party," said Goal's Damien Queally.
"I think they'll be surprised and disappointed."
The incoming Congolese government faces a huge challenge in catering for its population of 60 million, two-thirds of whom do not have access to adequate primary healthcare, 1.6 million of whom are internally displaced and 1.7 million of whom have recently returned to villages, towns or cities destroyed in the fighting.
The UN has prepared a $680 million (€530 million) humanitarian action plan to support some 330 projects in water, sanitation, health and food security in Congo.
So far, less then half that total has been raised.