Tight Swahili-Bandundu Bulkhead snuffs out Tshisekedi (CENI partial results)

CENI had started releasing partial results of the presidential election but its website was swiftly hacked. CENI Chair Rev Daniel Ngoy Mulunda, flanked by the full board of the electoral commission, has resorted to Plan-B: reading out partial results as they are trickling in at press briefings.

The trend is now shaping up: just as in 2006 against Jean-Pierre Bemba, Kabila has taken out 6 out of the 11 provinces of the DRC: all the eastern Swahili speaking bloc of provinces, plus the southwestern province of Bandundu, the stronghold of "Patriarch" Antoine Gizenga's "Parti Lumumbiste Unifié" (PALU).

With 33.30% of results in, Kabila has 3,275,125; and Tshisekedi stands at 2,161,953.

The tentative breakdown is as follows (I was writing down from figures shown on TV, so bear with me for any discrepancies or for the lack of percentage of votes counted so far in each province):

1) Bandundu: Kabila (473,995) vs. Tshisekedi (189,765);

2) Bas-Congo: K (110,804) vs. T (432,579);

3) Equateur: K (51,105) vs. T (162,443) vs. Kengo (153,622);

4) Kasai Occidental: K (65,989) vs. T (521,671);

5) Kasai Oriental: K (114,553) vs. T (524,511);

6) Katanga: K (1,427,694) vs. T (141,616);

7) Kinshasa (with 3.33% of votes counted): K (23,090) vs. T (42,868);

8) Maniema (with 49.25% of votes counted): K (229,090) vs. T (5,895);

9) Orientale (with 38.77% of votes counted): K (515,685) vs. T (107,949);

10) North Kivu: K (104,839) vs. T (71,494) vs. Kamerhe (102,373); and

11) South Kivu: K (167,370) vs. T (33,656) vs. Kamerhe (116,656).

One can therefore project Kabila as the winner of the 2011 presidential election...