Felix Tshisekedi
Félix Tshisekedi was re-elected president of the Democratic Republic of Congo during the elections of December 20-21 with 73.34% of the votes, the National Electoral Commission (Céni) announced on Sunday in Kinshasa.
According to these results from the electoral commission (Céni), Félix Tshisekedi is followed by Moïse Katumbi, former governor of Katanga (south-east), who obtains 18.08% of the votes, by Martin Fayulu, unsuccessful candidate in the 2018 presidential election ( 5.33%), then former Prime Minister (2008-2012) Adolphe Muzito (1.12%).
The twenty other candidates, including Dr Denis Mukwege, Nobel Peace Prize winner for his work with women victims of war rape, did not reach 1% of the votes.
For several days already, as partial results were published, the victory of Félix Tshisekedi, 60, in power since January 2019 and candidate for a second five-year term, was in no doubt.
“We categorically reject this sham election,” nine opposition candidates launched in a joint statement on Sunday morning. “We ask our people, as soon as electoral fraud is announced, to protest massively in the streets,” they added.
“It’s a charade,” Martin Fayulu insisted to the press.
Félix Tshisekedi’s performance is “beyond all predictions”, notes Trésor Kibangula, political analyst at the Ebuteli research institute.
“His campaign dynamics worked,” he told AFP. But the very high scores recorded in certain regions “raise questions” about the “impact of the irregularities” noted by observers.
Nearly 44 million voters, out of a total of around 100 million inhabitants of the immense Central African country, were called to the polls to elect their president but also their national and provincial deputies and, for the first time , their local advisors.
The quadruple vote was scheduled for December 20. But due to numerous logistical problems, it was extended to the 21st by the Ceni and continued for several days in certain remote areas, until the 27th according to an observation mission from the Catholic and Protestant Churches.
“A lot of uncertainties”
According to its own count, this mission says it has noted that one candidate “significantly stood out from the others, with more than half of the votes alone”. However, she adds that she has “documented numerous cases of irregularities likely to affect the integrity of the results of different elections in certain places”.
As early as December 20, opponents had described the elections as “total chaos”.
Shortly after, around fifteen embassies called for “restraint”.
Post-election tensions are feared in a country with a turbulent and often violent political history, a subsoil very rich in minerals but a predominantly poor population.
The authorities, who banned a first protest meeting last Wednesday, affirm that all measures have been taken to prevent excesses, particularly in the mining southeast, the electoral stronghold of Moïse Katumbi.
According to AFP teams, reinforced security measures were visible on Sunday in different points of Kinshasa and Lubumbashi, the provincial capital of Haut-Katanga.
The government also recalls that electoral disputes must be brought before the Constitutional Court, which will be responsible for proclaiming the final results of the presidential election, in principle on January 10.
But the opponents retort that they will not seize this court in which they have no confidence, any more than in the Ceni which they consider subservient to power.
In these conditions, what will the opposition do?
“Reactivating the streets against the victory of Félix Tshisekedi would be very complicated, especially in Kinshasa,” believes Trésor Kibangula. “All eyes are turning to the southeast… There are a lot of uncertainties,” he said.
In addition to the tense political climate, the electoral campaign was poisoned by the security situation in eastern DRC, which has been experiencing a peak of tension for two years with the resurgence of the M23 rebellion, supported by neighboring Rwanda.
Some candidates, Moïse Katumbi in particular, were accused of being “foreigners”, a way of discrediting them in a country scarred by years of conflict.
According to the Ebuteli analyst, the identity discourses of the campaign “created fractures in Congolese society”.
SOURCE: AFP
