BUNIA, Congo - Ethnic militiamen once went on a door-to-door killing spree along this provincial capital's main boulevard. Sunday, voters dressed in their best and beaming with pride walked down that street on the way to cast their ballots in Congo's first multiparty election in more than four decades.

A Congolese election official writes the election results on a blackboard as ballot counting continues through the night at College Alfajire polling station in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo's Bukavu town July 30, 2006. Millions of Congolese voted enthusiastically in their first free elections in over 40 years on Sunday, hoping to end years of war, corruption and chaos that have brought the mineral-rich African giant to its knees. [Reuters]

They were among voters across the vast heart of Africa taking part in an exercise made challenging by too few roads and telephones, and, despite the peace deal that opened the way to the balloting, too many gunmen.

If no presidential candidate won a majority Sunday, a runoff will be held between the two top vote-getters, likely in September. With 33 names on the presidential ballot, a run-off appeared likely.

Voters were also choosing representatives to a 500-seat parliament from among more than 9,000 candidates. About 25 million of Congo's 58 million people registered to vote.

President Joseph Kabila was the front-runner in a field that included ex-rebel leaders he once fought. He became president _ and rebel leaders became vice presidents _ three years ago in an appointed transitional government formed as part of a 2002 peace deal.

Final results may not be known for weeks. Results were to be hand tabulated and transported to Kinshasa, the capital, by plane, truck and boat from across a country the size of Western Europe that has few paved roads.

Hopes elected representatives would lead Congo to a lasting peace were perhaps highest in eastern Congo, where war has lingered longest and created one of the world's worst humanitarian disasters.

"There is a time for war and a time for peace. After this vote is the time for peace," said Pastor Marion P'Udongo, who walked to the polling station along Bunia's June 30 Boulevard, where ethnic Lendu fighters pulled members of the Hema ethnic group from their homes and killed hundreds in a 2003 massacre.

A peace deal later that year marked the beginning of the end of the Lendu-Hema fighting, but plenty of militiamen still kill and loot in Ituri province, of which Bunia is the capital. More than 50,000 have been killed in ethnic clashes since 1999 in Ituri.

Congo has been shattered by rapacious colonial rulers and homegrown dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, then back-to-back wars that lasted from 1996 to 2002. The instability has been most persistent in the east, perhaps because its timber and mineral wealth has drawn warlords from within the country and across its borders. More than half a dozen African countries had been drawn into the 1996-2002 violence.

Aid groups say about 1,000 people are dying every day from hunger and disease in the east. The U.N. estimates some 1.6 million people fled their homes because of fighting in the region.

Congolese election officials count ballots through the night at College Alfajire polling station in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo's Bukavu town July 30, 2006. Millions of Congolese voted enthusiastically in their first free elections in over 40 years on Sunday, hoping to end years of war, corruption and chaos that have brought the mineral-rich African giant to its knees. [Reuters]

Many had expected the violence to spike in the run-up to elections. But just days before the vote, two main militias with a total of more than 10,000 fighters agreed to disarm in Ituri.

Voting was largely peaceful across the country, except in the central region of Kasai in support of a veteran opposition leader's boycott call over his complaints he was not given a fair chance to run.

In Bunia, Pastor P'Udongo, who sheltered 67 people from militias in his home at the height of the killing, said he was twice captured by militias, set free each time after begging for his life. Now he travels into the bush trying to convince militiamen to disarm.

"It is not easy, said the 40-year-old P'Udongo. "It takes time to rebuild a country, rebuild societies and relationships that were torn apart."

P'Udongo, like many Congolese amid the tensions stirred by the campaign, did not say for whom he would vote. But Clementine Aoinde, a 30-year-old school teacher in Bunia said she would vote for incumbent Kabila. He was favored to win the elections, largely because he is credited with ending Congo's wars.

"Peace is all we ask of our new government," Aoinde said. "If the fighting goes on all hope is lost for our people."

Today, Bunia's streets are bustling with activity. Ragged children ply its dusty roads, traders sell bottles of petrol and motorcycle taxies ferry passengers.

U.N. peacekeeper convoys throw up clouds of dust. Across Congo, 17,600 U.N. troops formed the largest U.N. peacekeeping force in the world. The European Union sent another 1,000 to help secure the vote, and another 1,000 European troops were on standby in nearby Gabon.

Much of Congo is desperately poor, despite the country's mineral wealth. Whole villages in the country's remote interior virtually cut off from the outside world.

Congo descended into conflict almost immediately after it shook off Belgian colonialism in 1960. Decades of civil wars and coups d'etat followed, with the late U.S.-backed Mobutu at the helm for 32 years. One of Mobutu's sons, Nzanga, was among those who ran Sunday.

A Rwandan-backed rebellion by Kabila's father, Laurent, forced Mobutu from power in 1997 but a fresh insurgency led by Rwanda the following year divided the country.

Joseph Kabila took power after his father was assassinated by a bodyguard in 2001 and negotiated an official end to the war a year later, establishing a transitional government.