KINSHASA (Reuters) - Millions of Congolese will vote on Sunday in historic elections aimed at ending years of war and chaos in the heart of Africa and protected by the world's biggest U.N. peacekeeping force.From the crumbling capital Kinshasa through the thick jungles of the Congo river basin and the mist-shrouded peaks of the east, Congolese will participate in their first free elections in more than 40 years. Schools, churches and tents in Democratic Republic of Congo will be transformed into 50,000 polling stations for more than 25 million voters.
Over 17,000 United Nations peacekeepers -- backed by 1,000 European soldiers recently dispatched to the country -- will try to ensure voting can take place across the former Belgian colony the size of Western Europe. "Everyone wants to go and vote to finish this for once for all," Godefrod Shimatsu, a 47 year-old secretary, told Reuters in Kinshasa.
Sunday's elections are the culmination of a three-year peace process which ended Congo's last war -- a 1998-2003 conflict that sucked in six neighboring countries and killed 4 million people, mostly from hunger and disease.
| Because as we all know a vote cures everything. Sorry to be a cynic; hope the vote goes well but I don't expect it to solve all the problems in Congo. |