Word: kinshasa
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INAUGURATED. Joseph Kabila, 35, as the Democratic Republic of Congo's first freely elected President in more than 40 years; in the capital, Kinshasa. Kabila-who has served as the country's leader since the assassination of his father, President Laurent Kabila, in 2001-defeated Jean-Pierre Bemba in an electoral runoff in October. Addressing dignitaries alongside the Congo River, Kabila vowed to end the corruption and violence that have ravaged the mineral-rich country: "I can see the Congo of tomorrow carrying the hopes of a renascent Africa," he said...
...didn't take long. Even before the Democratic Republic of Congo's electoral commission announced the interim results of the country's first free vote in more than 40 years Sunday night, fighting had broken out in Kinshasa, the mouldering capital on the Congo River. Supporters of President Joseph Kabila clashed with backers of former warlord and current vice-president Jean-Pierre Bemba, who accused Kabila's Republican Guard of attacking its headquarters. Earlier, young men angry with Kabila's success hurled insults and rocks at patrolling policemen. "If you want war," they shouted, according...
...vast country is. Kabila was the overwhelming favorite in eastern Congo, which bore the brunt of the fighting during the long-running war, and where most people are desperate for peace. Support for Bemba is strongest in the center and far west of the country. The area around Kinshasa went to a third candidate, veteran politician Antoine Gizenga. Many in the west, including residents of Kinshasa, resent Kabila's rise to power and see him as an interloper who grew up in Tanzania and struggles in Lingala, the most common language across Congo...
...Congo's electoral commission has already taken some steps to clean up the mess - investigating a suspicious fire that destroyed used and unused ballots at a Kinshasa election center and attempting to reconstitute the results by checking polling station reports, for instance. But unless they take better control of the count, which still has weeks to run, suspicions will linger that many of Congo's voters were robbed. "We're not saying we've seen widespread fraud. We have seen some but not anything systematic," says Stewart. "But because of all the ambiguities we're not in a position...
...Kinshasa, the concerns about the new leader are purely practical. "I just want to be able to eat and drink," declares Celestine Mumdobu, who lives in a small block house with her two daughters and three grandchildren. "I want the leaders to compromise, so that the people can have peace, so that the people will have cassava bread and we will be fed until...