Image copyright AFP Image caption Election officials say not all of the votes have yet been counted

The results of last week's presidential vote in the Democratic Republic of Congo will not be published on Sunday, officials say, despite growing calls for the outcome to be announced. The electoral commission had said that Cenco was attempting to “brainwash the population” through its comments about the possible victor in the 30 December elections, according to a letter from Corneille Nangaa, the electoral commission’s chief. KINSHASA, Congo — Congo’s historic yet disorganized election suffered yet another delay on Sunday as the election commission admitted it had tabulated only about half of results on the day it was supposed to have completed the count. KINSHASA, Congo — Congo's government Sunday postponed the release of the results of last weekend's presidential election, fuelling suspicions President Joseph Kabila's ruling party is manoeuvring to cling to power. Image caption The Catholic Church says it knows who won the election but declined to name the winner

On Thursday, the National Episcopal Conference of Congo (Cenco) - which deployed some 40,000 election observers on voting day - said there was a clear winner based on its tally of the votes. "We are aware this process has always been surrounded by distrust," he said, referring to calls from the Catholic Church, the African Union, the U.S. and other diplomats for the government to announce accurate results. Because Congo's regulations say only the electoral commission can announce election results, the church did not name the winner. The government has already cut internet access across the vast Central African country to prevent any speculation on social media about who might have won the election. Congo faces what could be its first democratic, peaceful transfer of power since independence from Belgium in 1960, but election observers and the opposition have raised numerous concerns about voting irregularities as the country chooses a successor to longtime President Joseph Kabila. Some 40 million people were registered to vote, though at the last minute about 1 million were barred from doing so by the electoral commission, which cited the deadly Ebola outbreak in the eastern part of the country — a center of Congo's political opposition.
The Congolese election commission delays announcing the results of the recent election, claiming that only half the ballots have been counted.