President Faces Runoff in Congo

Violence Erupts After Results of Historic Vote Become Known

KINSHASA, Congo, Aug. 20 -- Congolese President Joseph Kabila's guards fought gun battles with forces loyal to his challenger, Jean-Pierre Bemba, in the capital on Sunday after election results showed the two would have to enter a runoff.

Figures from all but one constituency in Congo showed the vote headed for a runoff between Kabila and Bemba. The July 30 presidential and parliamentary polls were the first free, open elections in more than 40 years, following a decade of violence driven partly by greed for Congo's mineral riches.

But shooting in the tense capital, Kinshasa, in which one person was reported killed, forced the Independent Electoral Commission to cancel a ceremony at its press center to announce the results as gun battles raged a few hundred yards away.

"There is a lot of confusion, but some of Bemba's protection detail appear to have clashed with the presidential guard," said a senior official with a force from the United Nations.

White U.N. armored personnel carriers were deployed as gunfire and explosions echoed through the city center.

Government spokesman Henri Mova Sakanyi accused Bemba's forces of starting the fighting, some of which took place near the headquarters of Bemba's Movement for the Liberation of Congo party.

"Bemba's soldiers started shooting at policemen. We don't know what the reason is. Maybe they were trying to block publication of the election result," he said. He said three policemen had been wounded.

Bemba's party, which sprang from the Ugandan-backed rebel force he led in the war, accused Kabila's Republican Guard of attacking its headquarters in the city on Sunday afternoon.

With ballots in from 168 of the vast country's 169 constituencies, Kabila led with 44.5 percent, according to election experts -- less than the majority needed for a first-round win.

Bemba was in second place with more than 20 percent, meaning he will face Kabila in a runoff provisionally scheduled for Oct. 29.

The world's largest peacekeeping force -- 17,000 U.N. peacekeepers, backed by more than 1,000 European soldiers -- is overseeing a peace process culminating in the elections, which cost $450 million and presented huge logistical and security problems.