AS AN estimated 25m people in the Democratic Republic of Congo go to the polls today in the first multi-party elections for nearly 50 years, Jean-Pierre Bemba, a former warlord who is the main opposition candidate, has threatened to set the country “ablaze” if President Joseph Kabila steals the vote.

Both Kabila and Bemba have called for peaceful polling and the United Nations has predicted that the vote will be largely free and fair. But violence flared on the eve of the election, with eight people killed in an exchange of fire with Kabila’s security guards in Kinshasa, the capital.

Bemba’s final rally also ended in bloodshed as his supporters hurled stones, shot at police and set fire to a church.

The elections are costing the UN nearly £135m to organise on top of £3m spent trying to stabilise the war-crippled country. There are 50,000 polling stations and 17,500 UN troops to watch over them.

“We believe these will be good elections but not perfect ones — there will be problems,” said Ross Mountain, the chief UN envoy.

Kabila is the clear favourite to win. But his entourage has been rattled by Bemba’s effective campaigning in the past few days.

To be sure of prevailing, Kabila has to win in the first round. Political analysts say that with 32 candidates standing against him, this will be almost impossible without cheating.

If the election goes to a second round in October, the anti-Kabila vote could unite around whoever comes second, probably Bemba, and Kabila could lose, say analysts. The final result will be announced in mid-November.

Some observers warn there is a risk that the polls could yet plunge Congo back into a civil war that claimed 4m lives between 1998 and 2003.

“There will be winners and losers and many of the losers have guns,” said Jason Stearns, a senior Central Africa analyst with International Crisis Group.

The president has held power since the assassination of his ruthless father, Laurent Kabila, in 2001. Few thought the young ruler would last.

He had grown up in exile and had no political experience. The fact that he did not speak Lingala, the language of Kinshasa, was resented.

However, he survived. Now aged 35 and taking credit for paving the way for the first free elections since independence from Belgium, he faces his biggest test.

The threat from Bemba is no idle one. As finance minister in the transitional government, Bemba revived the economy.

He is the son of a super-rich businessman and has sunk £11m into his campaign. But he has an unsavoury past. During the civil war his forces were accused of cannibalism and war crimes.

A vast amount is at stake. Congo is blessed with copper, diamonds, gold, oil, uranium and, very importantly, coltan, a conductor used in the high-tech communications and aerospace industries.

Kabila has promised to provide roads, running water and higher education if elected. Will he prove to be a democrat, as the UN and the international community want to believe, or is he another African dictator in the making?

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