Will the elections, starting on Monday, heal or inflame Egypt's divisions?

When President Hosni Mubarak was forced from office, the prospect of a democratic election was almost unbearably exciting for those Egyptians. There were plenty of them who could not wait to get on with the future.

But now it is happening, many of the people who fought hardest to end the old regime are approaching the election with severe misgivings.

Some Tahrir Square veterans want the election to be postponed. The atmosphere created by the bloodshed of the last week has, they argue, made a fair poll impossible. To add to the confusion, others are saying that the elections are not going to be cancelled so they should get on with winning votes.

The liberals and secular activists in Tahrir are being outflanked by a tacit alliance between the military council and the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's biggest political movement. The Brotherhood says it sympathises with the people in the square but has not joined them. It does not want anything to disturb the progression towards elections, which it expects will give it a dominant position in the parliament that will write Egypt's new constitution.

The support that Egyptians gave the uprising against President Mubarak has not been transferred automatically to the people who have reoccupied Tahrir Square. Callers to radio phone-ins have directed a lot of criticism at them.

Some of the callers have identified themselves as members of the “party of the couch”, the Egyptian term for the silent majority who prefer to stay at home than demonstrate. Their role in the election could be decisive. One woman told a phone-in that Tahrir was Egypt's new dictator. She claimed to be a typical member of the couch party, and warned that her opinion still mattered.

The generals appear to believe that the couch party is on their side. If so, it will be hard for secular liberals to argue with the will of the people.

The Tahrir protesters can pull in big crowds. They will not buckle. The generals are determined to protect their institution, which they believe sustains and protects the country.

It is a recipe for more conflict.

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Laurent Gbagbo has been detained since his arrest in April after he refused to stand down as president

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Rebuilding Ivory Coast

Flash mob photos

Crown jewels looted

'War crimes' and politics

Huge rebuilding task

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued an arrest warrant for ousted Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo, his lawyers have said.

Mr Gbagbo has been under house arrest since April following a four-month stand-off with President Alassane Ouattara.

Mr Gbagbo had refused to accept defeat after elections in November 2010. About 3,000 people died in unrest afterwards.

He has been charged with looting, armed robbery and embezzlement.

He could be sent from the Ivory Coast to face trial in The Hague within hours, one of his lawyers told the French news agency, AFP.

Mr Gbagbo, who was in power for 10 years, is being held in the northern town of Korhogo.

The transfer request comes just two weeks before legislative elections are due in the Ivory Coast.

The ICC's chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo visited Ivory Coast in mid-October to investigate the country's post-election violence.

He met victims as well as government and opposition representatives.

During his visit, Mr Moreno-Ocampo promised that his investigation would be “impartial” and said he would focus on three to six people who shared the biggest responsibilities in the post-election crisis.

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KINSHASA (Reuters) – Four opposition challengers to Democratic Republic of Congo's President Joseph Kabila called on Tuesday for election results to be rejected, accusing authorities of systematic fraud.

Candidate Vital Kamerhe, a former government minister, said ballots had been marked ahead of the poll in favor of Kabila, and some voters prevented from entering polling stations during Monday's chaotic presidential and parliamentary elections.

Three other candidates also urged the Congolese not to accept any results from the vote, saying technical problems and fraud meant they would not be credible. However Kabila's top rival, Etienne Tshisekedi, did not join their call and his party said it was confident he would win.

“There can be no doubt as to the scale of the fraud, deliberately planned by those in power with the connivance of the national election commission,” Kamerhe wrote in a letter to Kabila, the election commission and international bodies.

“Police chased witnesses from polling stations before counting could start,” he said, citing reports by international observers and others that security forces took control of voting stations in Kinshasa.

“These elections must quite simply be annulled.”

At least eight people have been killed in violence linked to Monday's elections, the second since the end of Congo's 1998-2003 civil war. Authorities went ahead with the polls despite international concerns about a lack of preparation.

“We have no faith in the results which will come out of these elections,” presidential candidates Kengo wa Dondo, Antipas Mbusa Nyamwisi and Adam Bombole said in a statement.

Veteran opposition leader Tshisekedi did not join the calls for an annulment, and an official from his UDPS party said he was poised to win despite the irregularities.

“According to our estimations, Mr Kabila's fraud has not worked and we are ahead so we are not calling for a cancellation,” UDPS secretary general Jacquemain Shabani said.

The national election commission has repeatedly denied accusations of bias and said it was confident that preparations for the election were largely in place.

“A LESSON”

Kabila, 40, has been widely viewed as the favorite in the single-round vote against 10 challengers. About 18,500 people are also running for 500 seats in parliament.

Some polling stations were burned down or attacked on Monday as frustrated Congolese tried to find out where they should vote or were prevented from doing so by a lack of voting equipment.

Election commission spokesman Matthieu Mpita said about 800 polling stations that either experienced problems during voting or did not open at all had either been allowed to vote on Tuesday or would finish the process on Wednesday.

But he said at least 130 polling stations in the southern Kasai provinces, which are opposition strongholds, would not see any extension to voting until enquiries had been carried out, adding that the trouble had been fomented by local politicians.

“We are going to give them a lesson,” he said.

Anaclet Tshimbalanga, the president of TDH, a human rights group in West Kasai province, said at least 12 polling stations were torched in the provincial capital, Kananga, after residents said they found ballots already marked in favor of Kabila.

Mounoubai Madnodje, spokesman for the U.N. mission in Congo, said the United Nations was still delivering electoral materials on Tuesday to some areas which had yet to vote, including the central province of Bandundu.

“We've offered our helicopters to transport materials, so yes, we're still continuing to help,” he said, adding the country was generally calm.

(Writing by Mark John; Editing by Janet Lawrence and Andrew Heavens)

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