Congolese Learn to Keep Lid on Politics
KINSHASA, Congo (AP) - At a church in Congo's capital where parishioners wear everything from ripped jeans to pinstripe suits, one clothing item is not welcome -- a T-shirt supporting either of the country's two presidential candidates.
While Congo awaits final results from a landmark election after years of fighting and dictatorship, the people of this tense Central African nation are learning a whole other peacekeeping skill -- how not to talk politics.
Though party propaganda is ubiquitous in the capital, Kinshasa, and fervent supporters are easy to find on both sides, many in the city refuse to say whether they voted for incumbent President Joseph Kabila or former rebel leader Jean-Pierre Bemba in the Oct. 29 ballot. Instead, they repeat a slogan printed on posters and billboards put up by the electoral commission: "My vote is my secret."
As Congo takes its first steps toward democracy, some voters are keeping their allegiances private and influential institutions like the country's main churches are staying neutral -- a major leap in a place where political differences have sometimes been settled loudly, with guns.
The runoff is the climax of a four-year transition to democratic rule after a 1998-2002 war that drew in armies from half a dozen African nations.
Many Congolese cast the first ballots of their lives with a December constitutional referendum that paved the way for the elections. Before that, they knew mostly the one-party rule of late dictator Mobutu Sese Seko and the men who replaced him -- first Laurent Kabila, then his son, Joseph.
The race for the presidency has been heated, however. Forces loyal to Kabila and Bemba clashed for three days in late August as official results were released from July's first round, leaving at least 23 people dead in Kinshasa.
This time, electoral officials have tightly controlled result announcements and sped up official tallies, releasing the first returns Sunday, which showed Kabila ahead with less than 4 percent of the potential vote tabulated. Overall results are expected by Nov. 19, or sooner.
In the meantime, the country's electoral commission has warned against any public speculation -- suspending television stations that aired unofficial results showing one candidate winning.
"No one will prevent your analysis, but be responsible," electoral commission chief Apollinaire Malu-Malu told reporters last week.
Election observers said some hiccups are to be expected.
"It's part of the newness of the democratic culture here that rumors are rampant and people will react to rumors," said Colin Stewart, local head of the Atlanta-based Carter Center's election monitoring team.
Keeping political tensions at bay was also part of the run-up to the vote. Kabila and Bemba ran quiet campaigns after August's violence, making few public appearances and canceling a much-anticipated debate. Most of their public statements have been calls for calm.
The government banned the military and police from voting, and soldiers often cut short any discussion of politics, saying it isn't their place to have an opinion.
"We want the army and police to stay apolitical. It's a way to maintain stability," Malu-Malu said. The armed forces are integrating fighters from a host of private militias as part of the postwar transition.
The heavily Christian country's Catholic and Protestant churches have encouraged their followers to vote but have not come out in support of a candidate.
Both groups have prohibited posting political propaganda inside churches, with good reason. In July, pro-Bemba mobs burned a looted a church that had tacked up Kabila posters.
Father Bruno Kabambu, pastor of Kinshasa's Saint Michel parish, said he advised his parishioners not to wear T-shirts supporting either candidate to mass. Kabambu also didn't allow the candidates' representatives to address the congregation and banned political meetings on church grounds.
"I asked them to keep the parish a sacred place," Kabambu said.
Pastor Mwenelwa Milenge, the head of Congo's association of Protestant churches, said he sent his driver home one day for wearing a T-shirt with a candidate's face on it.
"He can wear it in his own home, that's fine," said Milenge. "But I told him, not when he's working for me. It could be seen as an endorsement."
Still, a few unaffiliated Christian churches have put their weight behind Kabila or Bemba. And Milenge said he's heard some parishes have put up political posters despite the ban.
For those wanting fiery public debate, it can still be heard easily spewing out of Congo's "standing parliaments," -- groups of unemployed or underemployed men who gather around newspapers pinned to clotheslines and debate the news of day. At one roadside stand in Kinshasa, their shouting drowned out passing traffic.
"The majority of the Congolese are with Bemba! The majority!" one yelled before his voice was lost in a torrent of affirmations and rebuttals.
"Everyone comes here and speaks his own mind. It's democracy," said Mbuta Munta, the 40-year-old owner of the stand. But Munta said he doesn't participate: "It doesn't interest me. I'm tired of it."
