By Joe Bavier KINSHASA, Feb 2 (Reuters) - Congolese soldiers and U.N. peacekeepers deployed in the western province of Bas-Congo on Friday after at least 77 people were killed in the worst political violence since last year's landmark elections. Protests erupted late on Wednesday in several towns in western Democratic Republic of Congo after the gubernatorial election for the opposition-controlled region was won by a supporter of President Joseph Kabila. Interior Minister Denis Kalume said late on Thursday the situation had been brought under control. Hospital staff and witnesses said at least 77 people had been killed. "One of the things we condemn is the loss of life," said Kemal Saiki, spokesman for 17,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping mission (MONUC). "There are mechanisms to address grievances. We ask all parties to exercise restraint." MONUC deployed 35 armed police to Bas-Congo following attacks on two U.N. vehicles, Saiki said. Colonel Jean-Paul Finda, advisor to the head of the Congolese army, said soldiers had been deployed to towns in the province in an effort to end the violence. Violence flared during a police raid on the home of the defeated candidate for vice-governorship Nemuanda Nsemi in the provincial capital Matadi and spread to other towns on Thursday. Nsemi, a member of defeated presidential candidate Jean-Pierre Bemba's Union of the Nation (UN) political coalition, is the spiritual head of Bundu dia Kongo, an anti-government ethnic-based political and religious movement. "They were mainly Bundu dia Kongo supporters protesting," said Nsemi's running-mate for the governorship, Leonard Fuka Unzola, another Bemba ally. ACCUSATIONS OF VOTE BUYING A hospital official in Matadi said more than 20 people were killed in clashes there, while in Boma, 50 kilometres (31 miles) to the west of Matadi, 26 people were killed, including both civilians and police. In Songololo, to the east of Matadi, local medical staff confirmed eight deaths. On the Atlantic coast, in Moanda witnesses said at least 23 people, including four policemen, were killed. Government officials have not released an overall death toll, saying they will wait for the completion of investigations launched on Friday, but a spokeswoman for Congo's national police confirmed the deaths of seven policemen and soldiers. The violence followed a verbal attack by Bemba on Kabila last week in which he accused the president's camp of buying local assembly members' votes for governors and senators. Kabila's Alliance of the Presidential Majority (AMP) won six of the nine governorships up for grabs, while Bemba's UN coalition won only one, in his home province of Equateur. It failed to win the governorships of Kinshasa and Bas-Congo, where Bemba has a strong popular following. Unzola has filed a lawsuit against the results in Bas-Congo, and Bundu dia Kongo militants had called for city-wide strikes and marches on Thursday. Bundu dia Kongo followers previously clashed with police and army in June during the campaign period for Congo's first free elections in more than 40 years. According to a U.N. human rights report, 12 civilians and one soldier were killed when soldiers purposefully fired on Bundu dia Kongo supporters in a premeditated crack-down.
