Observers: Disorder Plagues Congo Count

Election worker goes through counted ballots at a central election processing station in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, Monday, Aug. 7, 2006. The counting process is still underway, following the historic July 30 election vote. (AP Photo/Michel Euler) (Michel Euler - AP)

At one center in the capital, Kinshasa, bales of counted ballots lay piled under trees, while completed tally sheets were held down with chunks from a crumbling wall. One worker used the baled ballots as a footrest; another took an afternoon nap on discarded ballot boxes.

At least one unmarked ballot lay twisting on the ground in the breeze, just a few feet from a pile of yet-to-be-verified votes.

U.N. peacekeepers guarded the center, their automatic rifles propped against a log.

Some say such scenes must be taken in context.

"We believe the counting is going fine," says Robert Osubi Kiwutsi, the head of the vote-counting process at the Independent Electoral Commission.

"Congo isn't the United States, but even there they had problems," he says, noting the problems after the 2000 U.S. presidential elections.

Despite the difficulties of holding a vote in such a vast, war-ravaged country, election day passed relatively peacefully. Voting was pushed to a second day in two central provinces where 11 polling stations were burned down by protesters, and militias set fire to a village in eastern Congo after residents left to vote.

Electoral officials are optimistic that Congolese will accept the results of the vote count.

"To us it is a miracle that we have arrived to this stage in peace," said Kiwutsi. "Five years ago this country was in war."