© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Unbiased Nationwide Electoral Fee (CENI) officers and polling brokers collect to depend and tally casted poll papers at a polling centre following the Presidential election in Goma, North Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of Con
By Ange Kasongo
KINSHASA (Reuters) – Democratic Republic of Congo President Felix Tshisekedi has been re-elected for a second time period after getting greater than 73% of the vote in a Dec. 20 ballot, the nation’s election fee CENI stated on Sunday.
The declaration of the outcome follows days of opposition complaints about the way in which the election was carried out.
Logistical setbacks, an election day over-run, and an opaque vote depend have fuelled a dispute that threatens to additional destabilise a rustic roughly the scale of Western Europe which is the world’s high producer of cobalt and different prized industrial commodities.
Asserting the ends in the capital Kinshasa, Denis Kadima, head of CENI, stated Tshisekedi had obtained greater than 13 million out of over 18 million legitimate votes, including that turnout was greater than 43%.
Cheers erupted from Tshisekedi’s supporters current on the declaration after Kadima introduced that Tshisekedi was provisionally elected.
Talking to a whole bunch who gathered at his marketing campaign headquarters after the announcement, Tshisekedi, flanked by his spouse and mom, thanked supporters and promised to hurry up programmes throughout his second time period to deal with inequalities.
“You believed in my commitment not to spare any effort so that our country will retake its rightful place, and so that the Congolese people will recover their pride and dignity in belonging to this country,” he stated.
“You believed in my fight against inequalities that have for a long time characterized our society.”
Rival political events, candidates and people mandated by them have two days to problem the end result of the election on the Constitutional Court docket. The court docket then has seven days to rule on the case and proclaim the ultimate outcome.
Opposition frontrunner Moise Katumbi, who got here second with 18%, has already dominated out mounting a authorized problem to the outcomes, citing an alleged lack of independence of state establishments.
Different opposition candidates haven’t clarified whether or not they may problem the outcomes.
Earlier on Sunday a bunch of 9 opposition presidential candidates, together with Katumbi, and 6 leaders of political events requested supporters to take to the streets to protest after the discharge of the provisional outcomes.
JOINT DECLARATION
“We categorically reject the sham election … and its results,” the primary opposition candidates stated in a joint declaration. They demanded recent elections be held with a brand new electoral physique on a date to be agreed by all.
“We call on our people to take to the streets en masse after the proclamation of the electoral fraud,” they stated.
Whereas Tshisekedi’s supporters celebrated his win within the streets of the capital, there was calm in different cities with little indicators of protest on New Yr’s Eve.
The federal government of Congo had beforehand rejected requires a rerun of the elections.
Since election day, a few of Tshisekedi’s fundamental challengers, together with former oil govt Martin Fayulu, have been calling for a re-run of the competition and of legislative elections, accusing CENI of permitting the vote to be tipped within the president’s favour.
CENI and the federal government have dismissed these allegations and in addition warnings from impartial observer teams that the unscheduled extension of voting and different incidents on election day, and in the course of the tabulation of votes, might have compromised the credibility and authorized footing of the ballot.