Congolese Vote for President Sunday

July 29, 2006 — -- Voters of the Democratic Republic of Congo head to the polls on Sunday to elect a new president and parliament in what they hope will be the country's first fully democratic vote since independence.

The elections are part of the U.N.-led three-year transitional administration expected to end more than four decades of corruption, dictatorship and wars that have killed more than four million people.

"We are ready for elections on Sunday," Deputy U.N. Special Representative for Congo Ross Mountain said on Friday, after supporters of one presidential candidate torched buildings and attacked police and journalists in the river-side capital, Kinshasa, in the last day of campaigning. "We deplore these incidents, but you know it could have been worse."

MONUC, the U.N. mission in Congo, is the largest of the 18 U.N.-peacekeeping missions -- 17,000-strong, deployed to protect the elections. There also are 60,000 Congolese policemen and a 2,000-strong European Union military force added last month.

The military mission costs the U.N. more than $1 billion a year, with the international community footing the $460 million bill for Sunday's elections alone.

The U.N. said security and logistics were in place to allow the 25 million registered voters to cast ballots at 50,000 polling points across the huge nation, which is the size of Western Europe.

Fears that violence could disrupt the polls have dogged preparations for the vote in the vast, mineral-rich former Belgian colony that is struggling to shake off the effects of a devastating war that broke out following the ouster of U.S.-backed dictator Mobutu Sese Seko in 1997.

The 1998 insurrection by rebels linked to Rwanda and Uganda triggered a conflict involving six nations: The devastating result has been 4 million people dead and millions of internally displaced and refugees.

A U.N.-brokered peace deal was signed in 2003, but rebel and militia groups still terrorixe parts of Congo, especially in the east.