Kabila Faces Little Opposition in Congo

BUNIA, Congo -- With less than two weeks to go in the race to become the first democratically elected Congolese leader since 1960, President Joseph Kabila's 32 rivals are all but invisible, particularly in the vast country's outlying provinces.

"It's like the other candidates don't exist here," said Jean-Paul Mumbere-Masinda, a 29-year-old hotel receptionist in Bunia, a major city in eastern Congo.

The U.N.-organized vote set for July 30 follows brutal Belgian colonial rule, dictatorship, rebellions and a 1996-2002 conflict that sucked in armies from six countries bent on grabbing a share of Congo's mineral wealth.

Kabila stands out among a plethora of ex-rebels, corrupt functionaries and politicians enriched by former dictator Mobutu Sese Seko who are seeking the presidency. In part, that's because he is one of the few politicians with a recent track record.

The 35-year-old Kabila has governed for five years and is credited with ending years of fighting through peace deals that gave rebels leading positions in the interim government. He became president under the terms of the peace accord.

"Kabila ended the war. Congo was cut into morsels but he reunified it," said Mumbere-Masinda, watching television footage of hundreds cheering Kabila supporters in the central city Kisangani.

Former rebel leader and current Vice President Jean-Pierre Bemba, from northwestern Equator province, and Pierre Pay Pay, an easterner who held several key portfolios in Mobutu's Cabinet, are Kabila's closest competitors. Both have strong support in their native regions, and Pay Pay's coalition extends to some of Congo's key ethnic constituencies.

With Congo's 32 other presidential candidates given only four weeks to campaign in a country the size of Western Europe, an incumbent's traditional advantage is especially weighty.

Kabila is the man Congolese have seen meeting with foreign officials and politicians for the past several years, giving him name recognition and an aura of legitimacy. Many also revered his father, Laurent Kabila _ who was assassinated by disgruntled bodyguards in 2001 _ as the man who ended Mobutu's three-decades-long dictatorship.

In parts of northern Congo, attacks by Bemba's rebels are embedded in survivors' memories. Pay Pay is linked to Mobutu's corrupt bureaucracy.

"Mobutu destroyed the country. The people who were with him will only steal again," said 39-year-old Anderson Ntanga, a telephone kiosk operator in Kinshasa.

Wealth has also played a role in each candidate's visibility. Bemba grew rich from coffee and minerals in the northern swath of territory he ruled for years.

Some presidential hopefuls couldn't even enter the race, which requires a $50,000 registration fee. Many of those that did enter are running bare-bones campaigns, their posters, tiny compared to Kabila's or Bemba's billboards, stuck to decaying walls or hung between the branches of trees.

Congo's most recent war killed some 4 million people, most from hunger and disease, and much of the eastern territories are still engulfed in conflict. In a country devastated by war and neglect, the U.N. estimates some 1,200 die daily from preventable disease and hunger. An estimated 200,000 people are now displaced in Ituri.

On Bunia's outskirts, 30-year-old Florence Musafiri said she would like to have known more about the other candidates, but had no radio, television or access to newspapers. She said she would vote for Kabila.

"At least Kabila brought peace, I know he is a good man," she said with a shrug.

The number of candidates makes it unlikely that Kabila will win the simple majority needed to claim outright victory in the first round. A second round, probably in October, would pit the top two candidates against each other.

Whatever the outcome, the winner will have to answer to the people, Congolese maintain.

"We'll see how he governs the country. If Kabila doesn't help the people we will have to choose another president," said Mumbere-Masinda, the receptionist in Bunia.