Word: congoes
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...Democratic Republic of Congo's first free election in four decades went off with few hitches and few reports of violence on July 30. Millions of voters visited 50,000 polling stations to decide between the 9,700 candidates running for parliament and the 32 candidates for the presidency. Despite early claims from minor presidential candidates that the vote was rigged, foreign election observers said the polling process was mostly free and fair...
...counting the votes is proving much more troublesome. Foreign observers say voting papers have been dumped, materials from different polling stations mixed together, often in the back of trucks, and some voting tallies altered. Lobby group Human Rights Watch says that foreign observers in the east of Congo, a nation that sprawls across central Africa and is as big as the U.S. east of the Mississippi, were also being hindered in their work...
...Election observers from the Carter Center are urging Congo's electoral commission to win back voters' confidence by making the count more transparent, cross-checking results with the results obtained by observers in polling stations and extending the time allowed for people to lodge an official protest after results are posted. Colin Stewart, co-director of the Carter Center's DRC field office told TIME that the "logistical mess up" will create dangerous ambiguities unless it is dealt with quickly...
...Number of candidates in the Democratic Republic of Congo's elections on July 30, the country's first in 40 years $450 million Amount the U.N. has spent on expenses, including ballots for Congo's 50,000 voting bureaus, making it the costliest U.N.-assisted election in history...
President Joseph Kabila is favored to win Congo's July 30 vote, its first free election since 1961. A peaceful poll would aid recovery from a bloody civil war that ended in 2003. But most of his 32 opponents are already alleging fraud...