Kinshasa - Congolese opposition candidate Vital Kamerhe on Wednesday withdrew his call for the November 28 presidential and parliamentary elections to be annulled on the grounds of widespread irregularities.

The move means that both Kamerhe and veteran opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi, the other serious rival standing against President Joseph Kabila, appear happy to allow the ballot count to go ahead.

Three other candidates have called for the vote, which was plagued by delays and isolated outbreaks of violence, to be cancelled.

In a letter on Monday addressed to senior Congolese and international officials Kamerhe had called for the poll to be annulled due to irregularities.

However, two days later and after results have started being published, Kamerhe, a former speaker of parliament and minister of Kabila's, told journalists there had been improvements in voting conditions during election day.

“At this moment, we are not calling for the cancellation of the results,” Kamerhe said, adding that results should be widely published as they are collated, to avoid fraud.

Kamerhe said he and Tshisekedi had considered joining others calling for the poll to be cancelled but had decided against it because witnesses had been allowed into polling stations and voters themselves controlled alleged efforts at ballot-stuffing.

Monday's elections were accompanied by violence in which at least eight people died, shortages of voting materials and confusion over voter lists.

The African Union on Wednesday urged candidates to accept the outcome, saying they were well managed despite technical problems and violence. International observers have said it is too early to judge the elections.

The AU and other African observer missions have rejected the calls for the vote to be cancelled.

Tshisekedi's camp has said early indications from polling stations suggest he is in the lead, and Tshisekedi conspicuously failed to join the call of other candidates for an annulment.

“The reason that Tshisekedi and Kabila are going ahead with the process is clear: They both think they can win. Obviously, there will only be one president... Neither side appears ready to step down without a fight,” said Congo analyst and author Jason Stearns.

International election observer organisation the Carter Centre remains cautious, while George Soros-funded OSISA and a Congolese observer group AETA said in a joint statement that the population had voted in large numbers but there were shortcomings with organisation.

The group blamed the election commission for the problems and called for either a cancellation of these results and/or a re-vote in places where there were problems.

The Carter Centre said it was too early to give an overall verdict on the vote or turn out.

Kabila's move this year to sign off on constitutional changes making the vote a single-round election was widely seen as giving him the edge against a split field of 10 rivals. It means that a simple majority is needed for victory.

Preliminary results are due on December 6, but both Twitter and Congo's “Radio Trottoire” rumour mill were alive with snippets of reported results or projections.

Street vendors who usually sell newspapers to motorists on the boulevard in central Kinshasa were doing brisk trade in sheets of paper claiming to be “informal results”.

At centres across the vast mineral-rich Central African nation, the election commission (CENI) is totalling results from about 63 000 polling stations.

The Carter Centre has also warned that preparations for the compilation of the results had been inadequate.

“CENI must intensify its efforts to ensure that the voice of the Congolese people is respected, recorded and communicated in a manner that is secure and transparent,” it said.

On Tuesday night, at one compilation centre in the capital, employees worked by torchlight at a dimly-lit warehouse where taxis and battered minibuses packed full if ballot boxes were being emptied onto the grass outside the building.

The parliamentary count will take 45 days but the presidential results are expected on December 6, the manager of the centre said.

The complaints of fraud have led to concerns that Congo could see a post-election dispute like that in Ivory Coast, which this year descended into four months of conflict when incumbent Laurent Gbagbo refused to accept defeat.

The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Gbagbo and transferred him to The Hague on Wednesday to face charges of crimes against humanity for his alleged part in a conflict which claimed at least 3 000 lives.

ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo warned Congolese politicians this month they must avoid electoral violence or risk facing justice at the court. - Reuters