Fredrik Lerneryd, AFP | Voters gather in order to cast their ballot at a polling station at Terrotire, Kabare, Democratic Republic of Congo, on December 30, 2018.

After two years of delays, crackdowns and political turmoil, the Democratic Republic of Congo voted Sunday in presidential elections that will determine the future of Africa's notoriously unstable giant.

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While the vote appeared to be largely peaceful, there were reports of clashes at a polling station in the volatile eastern South-Kivu province that claimed the lives of a police officer, an electoral official and two civilians.

The vote gives the DRC the chance of its first peaceful transfer of power since it gained independence from Belgium in 1960.

Analysts, though, say the threat of upheaval is great, given organisational problems and suspicion of President Joseph Kabila, who refused to quit in 2016 after his two-term limit expired.

The election's credibility has been strained by repeated delays, fears of problems on polling day and accusations that voting machines would help to rig the result.

'Not an easy day' of voting in DR Congo

On election eve, talks aimed at averting violence after the vote broke down.

Opposition frontrunners Martin Fayulu and Felix Tshisekedi refused to sign a proposed code of conduct with Kabila's preferred successor, Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary. They accused officials with the Independent National Election Commission (CENI) of thwarting changes to the text.

The UN, US and Europe have appealed for the elections to be free, fair and peaceful -- a call echoed by the presidents of Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and the neighbouring Republic of Congo.

And in the Vatican, Pope Francis led thousands of worshippers in St. Peter's Square on Sunday in prayers for "normal and peaceful" elections.

On Sunday evening, Tshisekedi's campaign chief said violence erupted at a polling station in the Walungu area of South-Kivu province after an electoral official was accused of trying to rig the vote in Shadary's favour.

"An agitated crowd started fighting with police. An officer was killed, which we deeply regret," said Vital Kamerhe, a former president of the National Assembly who is from South-Kivu.

The mob "then attacked the electoral official who died. Two civilians were also killed," he told AFP of the incident which South-Kivu authorities said was being investigated.

Opposition chance?

The main contenders for president posed for the cameras as they went to cast their ballot.

"You saw how I campaigned, everything that happened. I'll be elected, I'll be president from tonight." Shadary told Actualite.cd news site, adding: "People must vote. We have to avoid violence."

Meanwhile Tshisekedi predicted: "Victory is ours."

Many voters said they were exhilarated at taking part in the first elections after the nearly 18-year Kabila era.

"I feel liberated, freed," said Victor Balibwa, a 53-year-old civil servant, casting his ballot in Lubumbashi, the country's mining capital in the southeast.

But there was also much evidence of organisational problems, including with the contested voting machines.

A monitoring commission with 40,000 grass-roots observers, set up by the influential Catholic Church, said it had received 1,543 reports of incidents by early afternoon.

Of these, 544 involved "malfunctions with voting machines," it said.

In some places, long queues built up because of a lack of electoral roll or because voters could not find their names on the lists, AFP reporters found.

RFI's Rosie Collyer explains role of the church in DR Congo election

At Imara in Lubumbashi, 30-year-old voter Diane Mumba, said, "The machines have been breaking down again and again for the last two hours. I don't know when I am going to vote."

An election observer in Lubumbashi confirmed, "there are five or six polling stations where the machines aren't working. You have to wait for a technician".

In Kinshasa, an elderly lady said she had trouble with the touch-screen voting.

"It's very complicated. I pressed the button without really knowing who I voted for -- I didn't see my candidate's number or face," she complained.

In the eastern city of Goma, voters who began queueing before the cut-off of 5pm were allowed to stay on to cast ballots. In the Kinshasa district of St. Raphael, where a delay in voting sparked anger earlier, ballotting was being allowed until 10pm, an African Union observer told AFP.

The vote for a new president took place alongside legislative and municipal polls.

Kabila's champion Shadary is a hardline former interior minister facing EU sanctions for a crackdown on protesters.

His biggest rivals are Fayulu, until recently a little-known legislator and former oil executive, and Tshisekedi, head of a veteran opposition party, the UDPS.

If the elections are "free and fair," an opposition candidate will almost certainly win, said Jason Stearns of the Congo Research Group, based at the Center on International Cooperation at New York University.

Opinion polls make Fayulu clear favourite, garnering around 44 percent of voting intentions, followed by 24 percent for Tshisekedi and 18 percent for Shadary, he said.

However, "the potential for violence is extremely high," he warned. Roughly half of respondents said they would reject the result if Shadary was declared winner, and would distrust DRC courts to settle a dispute fairly.

Frail giant

Almost the size of continental western Europe, the DRC is rich in gold, uranium, copper, cobalt and other minerals, but little wealth trickles down to the poor.

In the last 22 years, it has twice been a battleground for wars drawing in armies from central and southern Africa.

That legacy endures in the jungles of eastern DRC, where militias have carried out hundreds of killings.

DR Congo: 'Whoever wins this election is going to find it very difficult to effect change'

Insecurity and an ongoing Ebola epidemic in part of North Kivu province, and communal violence in Yumbi, in the southwest, prompted the authorities to postpone the elections there until March.

Around 1.25 million people in a national electoral roll of around 40 million voters are affected.

Despite this, the elections in the rest of the country have gone ahead.

The provisional results will be announced on January 6, final results on January 15 and the new president sworn in on January 18.

(AFP)

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