Congo's elections commission has postponed Sunday's vote by members of provincial assemblies to elect members to the country's new senate, a commission spokesman said on Friday, Reuters reported. The move is due to delays in choosing traditional chiefs to fill seats reserved for them in provincial assemblies. Under a new constitution approved by a referendum in late 2005, senators, governors, and vice-governors are elected indirectly by provincial assembly members. "We've fallen behind in the selection of traditional chiefs," Delion Kimbulungu, spokesman for Congo's Independent Electoral Commission, told Reuters on Friday. "There remain about a dozen seats." Kimbulungu said as soon as those seats are filled, a date will be set for voting on leadership posts in the provincial assemblies. Campaigning will begin the same day for national senate seats, with senatorial elections to be held four days later. Elections for governors and vice governors, originally scheduled for Jan. 16, will take place 11 days after the polls to choose the senators. Congo held its first free, fair elections in more than 40 years in 2006, hoping to draw a line under a devastating 1998-2003 war and resulting humanitarian disaster which killed some 4 million people. Fighting continues in eastern areas.
