The Southern African Development Community's Council of Ministers (SADC) meeting in Maseru, capital of Lesotho, on Wednesday expressed satisfaction with the recent democratic elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Timothy Thahane, council chairman and Lesotho's minister of finance and economic planning, said: "we were very pleased to note that the elections in the DRC were conducted peacefully and that the election results are coming in."

"We hope that the results will be accepted by all," he added.

Thahane said the DRC elections were an important milestone, adding to the increasing number of SADC member states which have gone through an electoral process and the democratic route.

The DRC held elections on July 30, the first democratic elections held in this Central African giant in over four decades.

The Institute for Security Studies (ISS), a regional research institute operating across sub-Saharan Africa, warned on Wednesday that there is a threat of public violence in the bigger cities of the country once the election results are made public.

Giving an update on the DRC elections and the possibility of a second round of elections, Henri Boshoff, military analyst at the ISS, predicted two possible violent scenarios -- one where victory celebrations become rowdy and another where losers burn and loot in an organized campaign.

"The security forces need to prepare to handle both those scenarios," Boshoff said at an ISS seminar on the DRC in Pretoria.

He said cities such as Kinshasa, Goma, Bukavu, and Lubumbashi could see protests when the final results were made known.

Such incidents are supposed to be policed by the Rapid Intervention Units of the Congolese police, the formed police units of the United Nations peace mission in the country also known as MONUC, as well as some elements of the European Union Force, he said.

Source: Xinhua