Yesterday’s vote for a new president of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) left a few voters enraged and frustrated but, was overall uncharacteristically calm.

The run up to the elections was tense as pockets of violence erupted throughout the country due to the decision to exclude nearly 1.3 million people, out of a voting populace of about 40 million, from casting their vote. The BBC World Service reports that these people will be allowed to vote in March 2019, long after the new president is sworn in, meaning their votes will not count. This, according to the electoral commission, was due to a fresh ebola outbreak and concerns for security.

After postponing the elections by a week, Sunday’s vote started off slowly in the country’s capital city of Kinshasa as heavy rains threatened to pause the polls. The BBC reported “delays in a number of areas because of problems with the electronic voting machines, which [were] being used for the first time. There was frustration in Limete, a district of Kinshasa, as the electoral register had not been delivered and people were unable to vote.”

This was the story in several voting districts, however, a UN observer reported the deaths of a police officer, an electoral official and two civilians after an altercation ensued in Walungu, South Kivu province.

Observers reported that the election day itself was mostly peaceful as people stayed in line while waiting for election materials to arrive. The Guardian reports that “observers hope that the election…will bring about the vast central African country’s first ostensibly democratic transition of power in its troubled history and chart a road to a better future. Others fear renewed instability if the opposition rejects the results and calls for protests.”

In this election in the DRC, there are 21 candidates but 3 frontrunners:

• Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, a former interior minister and Kabila loyalist, who was hit by European Union sanctions for his role in the violent suppression of opposition protests in 2017.
• Martin Fayulu, a former oil executive who has promised “a dignified and prosperous Congo,” but who poor Congolese feel may not advance their cause.
• Felix Tshisekedi Tshilombo, the son of a late veteran opposition leader who has promised to make the fight against poverty his priority.

Today, the DRC begins a tense wait for the announcement of results of the election and the first potentially peaceful transfer of power in decades. Speaking at a polling station, the president tried to address concerns about the voting, saying: “It’s clear that the elections are free and fair.”