Electoral officials in the Democratic Republic of Congo have postponed the release of the presidential election results despite immense calls for the outcome to be published.

CENI said it would not release the result on Sunday as initially scheduled, but would do so “next week”.

The head of the commission Corneille Nangaa said on Saturday that less than half of the votes had been counted and as such it was not possible to declare any winner.

“It is not possible to publish the results on Sunday. We are making progress, but we do not have everything yet,” he said.

Earlier this week, the Catholic Church in the country said it knew there was a clear winner from the vote. It called for the result to be made public to avoid political unrest.

The calls by the church prompted condemnation from the government, which accused it of engaging in “something illegal” and accused it of “preparing the population for insurrection”.

The United States has also called for transparency in the release of the result, a stand which has been echoed by the European Union and the United Nations.

Should the process move on smoothly and a new president is declared, the DR Congo will witness its first peaceful transition of power since independence.