Fire in DR Congo destroys voting machines ahead of polls

A fire broke out in an electoral commission building in Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Thursday, officials said, 10 days before presidential elections that have been foreshadowed by violence.

At least 8,000 electronic voting machines are known to have been destroyed in the fire.

That is more than two-thirds of the number needed for the capital city’s four million voters. Other electoral material was also destroyed.

The president of DR Congo’s National Electoral Commission (Ceni) called this a serious blow, but he added that officials would do everything they could to maintain the vote on 23 December.

Barnabe Kikaya Bin Karubi said 70 percent of the equipment due to be used for voting in Kinshasa, the country's capital, was destroyed in the fire he said was started by "criminals".

"The enemies of democracy have stepped it up a gear," he said.

Kikaya said that the police guarding the warehouse had been arrested and that preparations for the vote, which could mark the country's first peaceful transfer of power, would go ahead as voting machines from elsewhere in the country would be recalled to be used in Kinshasa.

Congo's first use of voting machines on December 23, a rarity in Africa, has caused concerns among the opposition, diplomats, and experts about possible manipulation in favor of President Joseph Kabila's preferred successor. Kabila is stepping aside after taking power in 2001.

The blaze came after three people were killed on Wednesday in clashes with police on the sidelines of an opposition rally in eastern DRC.

Clashes erupted in Kalemie, a town on Lake Tanganyika, as opposition candidate Martin Fayulu was campaigning there.

Fayulu blamed the violence on police - as well as on "armed youths on drugs", who, he said, were "dressed in PPRD clothing," a reference to the country's ruling party.

On Tuesday, two of Fayulu's supporters were killed and 43 hurt in clashes at a rally in Lubumbashi, the DRC's second-largest city.

The DRC is in the throes of a major campaign in advance of the December 23 election to choose a successor to President Joseph Kabila, who has ruled the vast central African country since 2001.

The nation has never known a peaceful transition of power since it gained independence from Belgium in 1960.