Congo heads for runoff as Kinshasa votes drip in

Democratic Republic of Congo looked set for a presidential runoff vote as early poll results from the capital on Thursday dragged President Joseph Kabila's tally below the 50 percent needed for a first-round win.
Results have been trickling in from across the vast central African country since the July 30 vote, with Kabila performing strongly in his native east and former rebel leader Jean-Pierre Bemba doing better in the west around the capital Kinshasa.
Kabila had been leading with more than 50 percent of votes counted, but results from one of the four Kinshasa compilation centres released on Thursday dragged down his running total to 48.4 percent, well ahead of Bemba on 16.2 percent, with numbers in from just over half the constituencies nation-wide.
"It's not done and dusted but it looks pretty certain that there will be a second round now," one diplomat told Reuters. "Kabila will lose ground with each Kinshasa centre."
The prospect of a turbulent lead-up to a Kabila-Bemba showdown was underscored when Congo's media authority suspended television stations close to both candidates on Thursday, accusing them of trying to incite violence.
Kabila, a native of the Swahili-speaking east who took over the presidency when his father was murdered in 2001, is unpopular in mainly Lingala-speaking Kinshasa.
Political analysts say most votes in the city will have gone to Bemba and other candidates from the 32-strong field.
Kinshasa accounts for 3 million of the total 25 million registered voters, and elections specialists say turnout in the chaotic city was around 80 percent.
The polls were the first free vote in over four decades and are meant to offer the mineral-rich African giant a fresh start after a 1998-2003 war that has killed over four million people, mostly from hunger and disease.
INCITING VIOLENCE As election officials struggled to collect the results from 50,000 polling stations across the vast country, speculation had mounted in the volatile capital that Kabila might win in one round after his strong showing in the heavily populated east.
But one international election observer told Reuters their indicators pointed to Kabila winning less than 50 percent of the overall vote, setting up a second round against Bemba.
Reports that neighbouring Angola - a firm Kabila ally that backed Kinshasa against rebels during the war - has reinforced its border with Congo have also stoked fears of a violent reaction to results in the capital.