{"id":1197,"date":"2011-11-27T03:07:52","date_gmt":"2011-11-27T03:07:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/violence-on-it-s-high-in-drc-final-election\/"},"modified":"2011-11-27T03:06:47","modified_gmt":"2011-11-27T03:06:47","slug":"violence-on-it-s-high-in-drc-final-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/violence-on-it-s-high-in-drc-final-election\/","title":{"rendered":"Violence On It’s High in DRC Final Election Campaign"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Main<\/figure>\n

{{The Final day of Election campaigning in the Democratic republic of Congo has climaxed into clashes prompting police to ban final rallies ahead of Monday’s Parliamentary and Presidential vote.}}<\/p>\n

Police in the capital Kinshasa moved in to end a stand-off with supporters of the main opposition candidate, Etienne Tshisekedi.<\/p>\n

The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said the government had “primary responsibility” for maintaining peace.<\/p>\n

“I call on all political leaders and the people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo to exercise restraint throughout the process to ensure that the elections are held in a peaceful and secure environment,” he said.<\/p>\n

President Joseph Kabila and his two main rivals had been due to hold rallies within several hundred metres of each other, at the Kinshasa City main stadium.<\/p>\n

However, Governor Andre Kimbuta said, “because of the escalating violence seen in Kinshasa, all public demonstrations and other political meetings are cancelled over the weekend”.<\/p>\n

DR-Congo interior ministry confirmed that two people had died in earlier clashes on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Later,Tshisekedi, of the Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS), attempted to defy the ban as he flew into Kinshasa.<\/p>\n

Throngs of his supporters, many brandishing palm fronds, had gathered along the airport road to greet the 78-year-old.<\/p>\n

But his car was blocked by police who parked a large armoured truck across the road, hemming him in for eight hours.<\/p>\n

According to local press, the standoff ended only when police pushed members of his 20-car entourage into their cars with shoves and baton blows and forced the motorcade to drive off.<\/p>\n

Police fired tear gas canisters into the crowd to disperse them. A number of UDPS officials were reported to have been roughed up or arrested.
\nMr Tshisekedi was eventually escorted to his home by police.<\/p>\n

The elections on Monday see 11 candidates running for president and more than 18,000 candidates for the 500-seat parliament.<\/p>\n

It will be the second presidential poll since the 1998-2003 war.
\nHowever, there are concerns over the distribution of ballot papers, as some planes bound for the country’s regions have been unable to take off because of bad weather.<\/p>\n

Tshisekedi has also alleged that the head of the national election commission favoured Mr Kabila, and that “ghost” polling stations would be used to rig the result.<\/p>\n

Election experts say it is unlikely the ballots will be able to reach the remote interior of a country where some 60,000 polling stations are spread out over a territory the size of Western Europe.<\/p>\n

“The end result of a democratic election should be the resolution of conflict. Instead, we’re heading into an election which is by its very nature bound to aggravate conflict,” said Jerome Bonso, co-ordinator of the Coalition for Peaceful and Transparent Elections.<\/p>\n

The last election, in 2006, was marred by weeks of street battles led by supporters of the losing candidate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{{The Final day of Election campaigning in the Democratic republic of Congo has climaxed into clashes prompting police to ban final rallies ahead of Monday’s Parliamentary and Presidential vote.}} Police in the capital Kinshasa moved in to end a stand-off with supporters of the main opposition candidate, Etienne Tshisekedi. The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[75],"byline":[277],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-1197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-homenews","byline-igihe-com-reporter"],"bylines":[{"id":277,"name":"IGIHE.com Reporter","slug":"igihe-com-reporter","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":277,"name":"IGIHE.com Reporter","slug":"igihe-com-reporter","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1197\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1197"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=1197"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=1197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}