The much anticipated Preliminary results from Democratic Republic of Congo’s tumultuous presidential election will be delayed past Sunday’s deadline.
According to Reuters,the commission, known as CENI, had received only 47 percent of vote tally sheets as of Saturday, said its president, Corneille Nangaa, and it was not yet clear when the results would be ready.
The delay is the latest setback in a disorganized poll to pick a successor to President Joseph Kabila, who has ruled the country of 80 million people since his father was assassinated in 2001.
The Dec. 30 vote could mark Congo’s first democratic transition of power since independence from Belgium in 1960. But tensions rose after observers reported a litany of irregularities that the opposition says are part of the ruling party’s effort to steal the election.
The opposition, represented by its two main candidates Martin Fayulu and Felix Tshisekedi, and the ruling coalition all say their candidates have won.
“It will not be possible to announce the results tomorrow,” Nangaa said.
A CENI spokesman later said that the commission was holding a meeting on Sunday to decide when they will be announced.
Worried that disputes and delays could spark the kind of violence seen after the 2006 and 2011 elections, the United Nations Security Council met on Friday to discuss how to react, but was unable to reach an agreement, according to an internal report seen by Reuters.
The United States condemned a lack of transparency in the contest, while China, a major investor, lauded the process.
Congo’s Catholic church body, CENCO, said this week that it had identified the victor based on its own tallies collected by 40,000 observers, though it did not name the winner. The declaration was widely seen as a warning to authorities against rigging the vote.