KINSHASA, Congo (AP) — The Latest on Congo's presidential election (all times local):

Amid rainy weather, Congo's outgoing President Joseph Kabila and his chosen successor, Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, have voted in the country's presidential election.

After voting, Kabila urged others to vote: "My message today to my compatriots is to come and vote for their candidates and brave the rain."

Shadary called for "peace and calm," adding "I am very confident in victory because the Congolese people will trust me, I campaigned all over the country."

Polls opened and people began voting in Congo for the long-delayed presidential election, amid worries over the exclusion of three cities from the voting.

"We declare the polling station open" said Francoise Ntadianga Tshiela, head of the the Gombe Institute voting center in the heart of Kinshasa, surrounded by embassies and government offices.

Some unrest is feared in the election after a last-minute decision to bar an estimated 1 million people from voting because of a deadly Ebola virus outbreak in the east. The decision has been widely criticized as threatening the credibility of the election.

Two main opposition candidates, Martin Fayulu and Felix Tshisekedi, are challenging President Joseph Kabila's preferred successor, the European Union-sanctioned former interior minister Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary.

AP writers Saleh Mwanimilongo and Mathilde Boussion contributed to this from Kinshasa, Congo. </s> People in the Democratic Republic of Congo have begun voting in a presidential election that could bring the troubled country’s first peaceful, democratic transfer of power.

People in the Democratic Republic of Congo have begun voting in a presidential election that could bring the troubled country’s first peaceful, democratic transfer of power.

Voters go to polls in DR Congo presidential election

Some unrest is feared after a last-minute decision to bar an estimated one million people from voting because of a deadly Ebola virus outbreak in the country’s east.

The decision has been widely criticised as threatening the credibility of the election.

Two main opposition candidates, Martin Fayulu and Felix Tshisekedi, are challenging President Joseph Kabila’s preferred successor, former interior minister Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, who is under sanctions from the European Union.

Amid rainy weather in the capital, Kinshasa, Mr Kabila and Mr Shadary voted at the central Gombe Institute polling station.

“My message today to my compatriots is to come and vote for their candidates and brave the rain,” said Mr Kabila.

Mr Shadary called for “peace and calm”, adding: “I am very confident in victory because the Congolese people will trust me, I campaigned all over the country.”

DR Congo’s 40 million registered voters are using electronic voting machines with touch screens for the first time amid opposition concerns that the results could be manipulated.

Some observers have said voting materials did not reach some polling stations in time.

At stake is a country rich in minerals including those crucial to the world’s smartphones and electric cars, and yet DR Congo remains desperately underdeveloped. Corruption and insecurity are widespread. </s> Kinshasa (AFP) - Parties supporting outgoing Democratic Republic of Congo president Joseph Kabila won a majority in long-delayed legislative elections, according to an AFP tally of results released Saturday, as the opposition sought a recount of the disputed presidential poll.

Pro-Kabila parties had passed the 250-seat threshold required to secure a majority in the 500-seat national assembly, according to collated results from the Independent National Election Commission (CENI).

More than 15,000 candidates were running in the poll, which determines who will control parliament for the next five years.

Pro-Kabila candidates had secured 288 of the 429 seats so far declared, with 141 going to the opposition.

The huge central African country, which straddles an area the size of western Europe, has been in the grip of a two-year political crisis triggered by Kabila's refusal to step down when his two-term constitutional limit expired at the end of 2016.

A presidential election to choose a successor was delayed three times before finally taking place on December 30, the same day as the legislative poll.

The poll's runner-up Martin Fayulu, an opposition candidate tipped by pollsters as the likely winner of the vote, told supporters on Friday he would demand a recount.

He said he would challenge Corneille Nangaa, head of the election commission "to produce the tally reports from polling stations in front of witnesses" and Congolese and international observers.

Provisional results released on Thursday gave Felix Tshisekedi, a rival opposition candidate, 38.57 percent of the vote, just ahead of Fayulu with 34.8 percent.

Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, the candidate backed by Kabila, came a distant third with 23.8 percent.

The declared result was a surprise to many observers of the mineral-rich but poverty-stricken country, which has suffered two major wars in the past 22 years, as well as bloodshed in elections in 2006 and 2011 that saw Kabila returned to office.

Pre-election opinion polls had flagged Fayulu as clear favourite while Kabila critics predicted an outcome rigged in favour of Shadary.

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The powerful Roman Catholic church bluntly said CENI's provisional result "does not correspond" with data that its 40,000 election monitors had collected at polling stations.

Fayulu's bloc on Friday said he was the true victor, claiming he had garnered 61 percent of the vote.

Candidates have 48 hours after the result to file any appeal, and the Constitutional Court has a week in which to deliberate.

"We don't expect the election to be annulled, but (a decision in favour of) a recount," Fayulu said.

- Unstable giant -

Polling day had unfolded relatively peacefully, but suspicions over the count have deepened.

The turmoil has darkened hopes that the country will have its first peaceful handover of power since it gained independence in 1960.

International reactions to the results have been guarded.

Most leaders issued statements calling for any disputes to be resolved peacefully, but notably lacking any congratulations for Tshisekedi.

Competing appeals in the dispute were pitched to the UN Security Council on Friday.

CENI chief Nangaa, speaking by video conference, pleaded for "the new authorities to be supported by the international community".

Bishop Marcel Utembi, head of the Catholic church's conference of bishops, urged the Security Council to ask CENI to release the records of vote-counting at polling stations to allow for verification.

- Tshisekedi-Kabila deal? -

Analysts said they believed Kabila, 47, had sought to avoid the expected backlash and international condemnation that would have followed had Shadary -- the candidate he publicly supported -- been declared winner.

According to this scenario, he therefore struck a deal with Tshisekedi, head of the country's oldest and biggest opposition party.

Some commentators suggested Kabila would have sought immunity from prosecution for his iron-fisted 18-year rule, and protection from assets seizure in return for offering his support.

Thursday's pre-dawn announcement brought thousands of Tshisekedi supporters onto the streets in celebration, while others who had backed Fayulu came out to protest.

The authorities late Friday imposed an 8pm-5am curfew in Kikwit, a Fayulu stronghold in the west of the country, city mayor Leonard Mutangu told AFP.

Five civilians were killed there on Thursday in a police operation to curb post-election violence, said National Police spokesman Colonel Pierrot-Rombaut Mwanamputu.

Seventeen police were injured, he said, denying earlier reports of police fatalities. A relay station of the national radio and television broadcaster, RTNC, was also ransacked, he added.

In the eastern city of Goma, at least one person was killed, officials said. </s> The ruling coalition of Congo's outgoing President Joseph Kabila has won a large majority of national assembly seats, the electoral commission announced early Saturday, while the presidential election runner-up was poised to file a court challenge alleging fraud.

The national assembly majority sharply reduces the chances of dramatic reforms under the declared presidential election winner, opposition leader Felix Tshisekedi. The election runner-up, Martin Fayulu, has accused Tshisekedi of a backroom deal with Kabila to win power in the mineral-rich nation as the ruling party candidate did poorly.

Congolese face the extraordinary situation of a presidential vote allegedly rigged in favor of the opposition. "This is more than an electoral farce; it's a tragedy," the LUCHA activist group tweeted Saturday, noting the ruling party majority in both national assembly and provincial elections.

Fayulu, a businessman who has been vocal about cleaning up widespread corruption, is filing the court challenge on Saturday.

His opposition coalition on Friday said he won 61 percent of the vote, citing figures compiled by the Catholic Church's 40,000 election observers across the vast Central African country. The figures show Tshieskedi received 18 percent, the coalition said.

The church, the rare authority that many Congolese find trustworthy, has said its figures showed a different winner from the one officially declared. In remarks to U.N. Security Council on Friday, the church urged the electoral commission to release its detailed vote results for public scrutiny.

The commission has said Tshisekedi won with 38 percent of the vote while Fayulu received 34 percent.

This could be Congo's first peaceful, democratic transfer of power since independence from Belgium in 1960, but observers have warned that a court challenge could lead to violence. Some Fayulu supporters have worried that the constitutional court could invalidate the results, keeping Kabila in power until a new election.

There are two options, electoral commission president Corneille Nangaa told the Security Council: The official results are accepted or the vote is annulled.

"Even if Tshisekedi's presidency survives these court challenges, he will be compromised beyond repair and reliant on Kabila, whose patronage network controls most of the country's levers of power, including the security forces," professor Pierre Engelbert, a fellow with at the Atlantic Council's Africa Center, wrote on Friday.

The Dec. 30 election came after more than two turbulent years of delays as many Congolese worried that Kabila, in power since 2001, sought a way to stay in office to protect his sprawling assets.

Statements by the international community, including African regional blocs, have not congratulated Tshisekedi, merely taking note of official results and urging against violence.

Congo's 80 million people have been largely peaceful since the vote, though the U.N. peacekeeping mission has reported at least a dozen deaths in protests in Kwilu province, with authorities noting demonstrations in Kisangani and Mbandaka cities.

Internet service has been cut off across the country since election day.

Tshisekedi had not been widely considered the leading candidate. Long in the shadow of his father, the late opposition leader Etienne, he broke away from the opposition's unity candidate, Fayulu, to stand on his own.

After election results were announced, Tshisekedi said Kabila would be an "important partner" in the transition.

Fayulu, who was backed by two popular opposition leaders barred by the government from running, is seen as more of a threat to Kabila's interests.

The difference between Tshisekedi and Fayulu in official results was some 684,000 votes. One million voters were barred from the election at the last minute, with the electoral commission blaming a deadly Ebola virus outbreak. Elsewhere, observers reported numerous problems including malfunctioning voting machines and polling stations that opened hours late.

The presidential inauguration will be on Jan. 22, the electoral commission said Saturday. </s> KINSHASA, Congo — The ruling coalition of Congo's outgoing President Joseph Kabila has won a large majority of seats in the national assembly. The electoral commission announced the results early Saturday.

That sharply reduces the chances of dramatic reforms under the declared presidential election winner, opposition leader Felix Tshisekedi. The election runner-up accuses Tshisekedi of a backroom deal with Kabila to win power.

The runner-up, businessman and anti-corruption campaigner Martin Fayulu, has said he will file a court challenge to the election results on Saturday morning.

His opposition coalition says Fayulu won 61 percent of the vote, citing figures compiled by the influential Catholic Church's election observers. The coalition says the figures show Tshieskedi received 18 percent.

The electoral commission says the date for the presidential inauguration is Jan. 22. </s> Stephanie Wolters is a Senior Research Fellow focusing on Central Africa at the Institute for Security Studies in South Africa.

The announcement this past week that Opposition Leader Felix Tshisekedi won the recent presidential election in the Democratic Republic of Congo brought an end to weeks of tense waiting and two long years of political paralysis and uncertainty. For the first time in its history, the DRC will see a transfer of power from a ruling party to the opposition, a development few dared to imagine even a few weeks ago.

Over the past two years the Congolese people have gone into the streets again and again to fight for their right to vote, making it clear that they wanted President Joseph Kabila and his cronies to go. This domestic unrest led regional players such as Angola to pressure Mr. Kabila not to attempt to run again. This is a substantial victory for the Congolese people: Through sustained pressure, and at great risk to their lives, they secured the right to vote and ensured that the Congolese Constitution was respected. Even the fact that Mr. Kabila did not force through his candidate is a victory for which the Congolese people can take credit.

So it would be a big set-back if, after all this hard work, the Congolese people were to have their vote stolen from them.

Mr. Tshisekedi’s electoral victory has already been challenged by the Catholic Church, one of the few players in the DRC to have credibility and the trust of large sections of the population. The Church deployed 40,000 observers to the polls on election day and says its results indicate that a different candidate won.

Martin Fayulu, the leader of the opposition Lamuka coalition has also rejected the official results. His coalition includes two political heavyweights, Jean-Pierre Bemba and Moise Katumbi, whom the Independent Electoral Commission (CENI) excluded from the election.

Mr. Tshisekedi’s supporters have been celebrating and even some who say they did not vote for him have welcomed his election, expressing the feeling that anyone is better than the ruling-party candidate, Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary. There have been incidents of violence in parts of the country where Mr. Fayulu is particularly popular, but the scale of the protests is nothing compared with what was expected had Mr. Kabila’s hand-picked successor been declared the winner.

The question now is whether the population is content to accept a result from an institution that has been a key part of the ruling elite’s machinery just because it has given that victory to a political opponent.

As it has in the pre-electoral period, the Congolese population’s reaction now will to a great extent drive regional and continental responses. If Congolese actors choose not to challenge CENI’s results and demand an investigation, it is highly unlikely that the African Union (AU) and the even more reluctant Southern African Development Community (SADC) will insist on greater transparency before endorsing the official result. The AU and SADC have done little to help the Congolese get to this point, but their voice remains important. South Africa, which has played a role in DRC elections in the past and is a new rotating member of the United Nations Security Council should also be pushing for greater transparency.

Mr. Tshisekedi himself should want to start his historic mandate without clouds of doubt hanging over his head. There has been talk of a deal between him and Mr. Kabila: He is declared the winner and in return shares power with Mr. Kabila and his elite. Eventually, we will know whether this was the case just by looking at Mr. Tshisekedi’s cabinet appointments, but he and his party have already gone from bashing Mr. Kabila and the electoral commission before the election to openly lauding Mr. Kabila as a Congolese hero. If Mr. Tshisekedi had won this election fair and square, and knew it, it seems doubtful he would have been so complimentary about a party the population has just voted out of office.

Mr. Tshisekedi’s supporters understandably don’t want the results to be questioned, but they should. The elite in his party will benefit no matter how he governs, but Congolese citizens need courageous leadership that will tackle the fundamental problems in the country: state capture by a small group of civilians and military elite, massive corruption and vested national and international economic interests that undermine development.

If Mr. Tshisekedi is the real winner, and can prove it, he will have his work cut out for him, but his hands won’t be tied. If Mr. Kabila and his elite are the ones who put him there, and this is not challenged effectively, nothing will change. Mr. Kabila, who months ago was tarnished by his lingering in power, his extensive personal business interests and his government’s track record of repression and violence, can walk away with the certainty that the Congolese opposition can be bought for a price, and that the Congolese people’s voices can be silenced after all. </s> (Bloomberg) -- The Democratic Republic of Congo started voting Sunday for a successor to long-serving President Joseph Kabila after a tense campaign the opposition said was marred by crackdowns and disruptions.

Kabila’s handpicked successor, Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, is running for the ruling coalition and faces strong challenges from opposition alliances headed by Felix Tshisekedi and Martin Fayulu. The current president, in power for almost 18 years, is barred by the constitution from running for a third term, having won elections in 2006 and 2011. Voters will also select national and provincial lawmakers.

“This is going to be a historic vote,” Martin Mudiayi, a shop attendant, said as he waited for his turn to vote in a polling station in the eastern city of Goma. “The time has come for President Kabila and his group to step down and give a chance to a new leadership.”

Congo, Africa’s biggest copper producer and a key source of minerals essential to the smartphone and electric-vehicle industries, could be on the verge of its first transition of power through the ballot box since independence in 1960. Despite the presence of more than 16,000 United Nations peacekeepers in the vast central African country, the government took the unusual step to refuse logistical support from the UN and financial assistance from international donors to organize the vote. It also barred some foreign observers.

“We committed to financing our electoral process entirely ourselves for the very first time in our history,” Kabila said on state TV late Saturday. “For us, it’s an effort to shield our country from foreign interference liable to thwart the will of self-determination of our people.”

The opposition accuses the electoral commission of preparing an election that’ll be neither free nor fair and the Congolese state of hampering their campaigns while aiding Shadary’s. At least seven of Fayulu and Tshisekedi’s supporters were killed and many more wounded by security forces from Dec. 9 to 13 as they gathered for rallies in various parts of the country, according to New York-based Human Rights Watch.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said she was “deeply worried about the reports of excessive use of force, including live ammunition, by security forces against opposition rallies.”

The electoral commission pushed back the polls, already two years late, by another seven days from Dec. 23, blaming a fire at one of its warehouses in the capital, Kinshasa, and also suspended campaigning three days early in the city as Fayulu was planning a mass meeting.

The authority then postponed elections in three parts of the country until March, citing an Ebola outbreak, militia attacks and inter-communal violence. That effectively disenfranchised 1.2 million of Congo’s 40 million registered voters in regions known as strongholds of Kabila’s critics. Health Minister Oly Ilunga previously said the virus wouldn’t hinder elections.

Tshisekedi, the leader of Congo’s largest opposition party, has teamed up with Vital Kamerhe, who heads another major party and came third in 2011’s election, while Fayulu is boosted by the support of heavyweights Jean-Pierre Bemba and Moise Katumbi.

Two recent polls published by New York University’s Congo Research Group record Shadary as trailing the opposition by a large margin, with Tshisekedi topping a survey in October and Fayulu leading a second published Dec. 28.

Provisional results of the presidential contest are due to be announced Jan. 6 and the final decision on Jan. 15. The next head of state is scheduled to be sworn in three days later.

To contact the reporters on this story: William Clowes in Kinshasa at wclowes@bloomberg.net;Ignatius Ssuuna in Goma at issuuna@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Paul Richardson at pmrichardson@bloomberg.net, Pauline Bax, Michael Gunn </s> KINSHASA, Congo (AP) - Congo's top electoral official says the announcement of the results of the presidential election has been postponed.

Corneille Nangaa told The Associated Press that the results of the Dec. 30 election will not be made public Sunday as expected. He said the official electoral commission will confirm the delay later Sunday.

The postponement in announcing the results is expected to increase tensions in Congo.

The Catholic Church, an influential voice in the heavily Catholic nation, said that data reported by its 40,000 election observers deployed in polling stations show a clear winner. The church urged the electoral commission to announce accurate results.

The government has already cut internet access across the vast Central African country to prevent any speculation on social media about who might have won the election.

This photo taken Friday Jan. 4, 2019 shows a blackboard with presidential election results for that specific polling station, in a school in Kinshasa, Congo. Congo faces what could be its first democratic, peaceful transfer of power since independence from Belgium in 1960, but election observers and the opposition have raised numerous concerns about voting irregularities as the country chooses a successor to longtime President Joseph Kabila. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay) </s> Surprise Winner Of Congolese Election Is An Opposition Leader

The Congolese capital of Kinshasa is reported relatively quiet early Thursday morning as the nation's electoral commission waited until the wee hours to declare opposition leader Felix Tshisekedi the provisional winner of last month's long-delayed presidential election in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

With 7 million votes, or 38 percent, Tshisekedi outpaced another opposition frontrunner, Martin Fayulu, who came in second with more than 6 million votes. The governing coalition's candidate Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary came in third with more than 4 million votes.

"Some observers have suggested that President Joseph Kabila's government sought to make a deal as hopes faded for a win" for Shadary, the Associated Press reported.

As NPR's Ofeibea Quist-Arcton reports from Kinshasa that the results could lead to protests and allegations of rigging.

The second-place winner, Fayulu, has not yet indicated whether he will contest the results. Earlier, he said that the results were "not negotiable" and that election officials should not "disguise the truth." He also made it clear that he was not looking for any deal with Kabila's governing coalition.

The vote, delayed since 2016 and marred by allegations of widespread irregularities, occurred on Dec. 30. The results were originally scheduled to be released on Sunday, Jan 6.

As the central African nation of 80 million people awaited the election results, riot police with water canon were deployed around the electoral commission and Kinshasa's main boulevard in anticipation of possible unrest.

Felix Tshisekedi is the son of Congo's historic opposition leader, Etienne Tshisekedi, who died in 2017.

Term-limited President Joseph Kabila is due to step down after 18 years in power. His term was to have ended in 2016, but he successfully delayed the election until December 2018. Critics charged he used that two-year period to prolong his presidency, violently suppress the opposition and hand-pick his preferred successor.

In face of rising tensions associated with the elections, the U.S. Embassy in Kinshasa had issued an alert warning Americans to leave the mineral- and metal-rich country, prone to rebellions and conflict, mainly in the often-troubled east, where the authorities suspended the presidential vote in two opposition strongholds at the epicenter of an Ebola epidemic, citing health concerns about the virus spreading.
Voters in the Democratic Republic of the Congo head to the polls to determine a successor to incumbent President Joseph Kabila. Elections are also held for the National Assembly and local councils.