Congo President Joseph Kabila has vowed to sign off imminently on an electoral law which should unblock preparations for the first independent polls in four decades, the top U.N. peacekeeper said on Wednesday according to Reuters. Democratic Republic of Congo's long awaited elections are due by the end of June, but with political infighting in the capital and violence in the east, Jean-Marie Guehenno said the priority was making polls inclusive and credible rather than rushing to complete them. The elections are meant to draw a line under a five-year conflict that officially ended in 2003 and that at its height sucked in six foreign armies. It has killed 4 million people, mostly from war-related hunger and disease. "The head of state assured me of the imminent promulgation of the electoral law," Guehenno told reporters in Kinshasa on Wednesday, a day after he met Kabila. "It is important that it is promulgated as soon as possible as it will unblock the electoral calendar," he said. Once the law is approved, officials can start registering candidates, printing ballot papers for 25 million voters and transporting them across the vast chaotic country, which is the size of Western Europe but lacks basic infrastructure. Under peace deals that ended the war and brought rebels into a transitional government in Kinshasa, two rounds of polls were due last year. However, they were delayed, and analysts say the new deadline of June 30, 2006 is also likely to be missed. But Guehenno said the "electoral train" had left the station and people should not worry too much exactly when it arrived. --more 21 06 Local Time 18 06 GMT
