Congo held its crucial presidential run-off yesterday amid high political tensions and fears of violence in what senior United Nations diplomats are calling Africa's most important elections since South Africa's 1994 presidential poll.

Although two people were killed in clashes with police late yesterday, voting passed relatively peacefully across the mineral-rich country. But diplomats and observers remained worried tensions between the two presidential candidates could spill over into widespread violent confrontation as results filter out. Supporters of President Joseph Kabila, election front-runner, and his rival Jean-Pierre Bemba, a former rebel boss turned vice-president, have clashed several times since the first round of voting. In August, their private armies fought three days of gun battles in the capital Kinshasa after the announcement of results.