DRC Court Confirms Tshisekedi Winner Of Disputed Presidential Election

DR Congo’s top court on Sunday declared opposition leader Felix
Tshisekedi the winner of disputed presidential elections after
throwing out a legal challenge by the runner-up.

Announcing the final results of the much-delayed poll, the
Constitutional Court said Tshisekedi had won by a simple majority,
paving the way for him to take over from longterm leader Joseph
Kabila.

Runner-up Martin Fayulu, who has previously described the
outcome as an “electoral coup” forged by Tshisekedi and Kabila,
immediately called on the international community to reject the
results.

“I ask the entire international community not to recognise a
power that has neither legitimacy nor legal standing to represent
the Congolese people,” he said of Tshisekedi, declaring himself
“the only legitimate president”.

Tshisekedi’s victory was provisionally announced earlier this
month by the Independent National Election Commission (CENI) but it
was challenged both at home and abroad, with the African Union
appealing for the final results to be delayed.

On Sunday, the Constitutional Court said Fayulu’s claims were
“unfounded” and he had failed to prove any inaccuracies in the
figures, describing his call for a recount as “absurd”.

“Only the CENI has produced authentic and sincere results,”
judge Noel Kilomba said.

The court went on to declare Tshisekedi as the “President of the
Democratic Republic of Congo by simple majority”.

The ruling was considered unsurprising, with the court made up
of Kabila’s allies.

Hundreds of supporters of Tshisekedi had gathered outside the
court holding placards saying “No to interference” and “Independent
country” as riot police stood nearby.

The CENI has previously scheduled the swearing-in of the next
president for Tuesday.

‘Not their business’
The election commission announced on January 10 that Tshisekedi had
provisionally won with 38.57 percent of the vote against Fayulu’s
34.8 percent.

The head of the country’s oldest and biggest opposition party,
the Union for Democracy and Social Progress, 55-year-old Tshisekedi
has never held high office or even a managerial role.

At a summit on Thursday, AU leaders said there were “serious
doubts” about the figures and called for the final results to be
delayed.

But DR Congo government spokesman Lambert Mende had snubbed the
demand, saying: “I don’t think it is the business of the government
or even of the African Union to tell the court what it should
do.”

The AU had planned to send its commission chief Moussa Faki
Mahamat and Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame, currently the AU
chairman, to DR Congo on Monday.

The European Union said it joined the AU in inviting “all the
Congolese players to work constructively with this (AU) delegation
to find a post-electoral solution which respects the Congolese
people’s vote”.

Appeal
The Financial Times and other foreign media have reported seeing
documents that confirm Fayulu as the winner.

The influential Roman Catholic Church, which says it deployed
40,000 observers to monitor the poll, has also dismissed the
official outcome as not reflecting the true result.

“If the court declares Tshisekedi victor, the risk of isolation
would be enormous and untenable for a country positioned right in
the middle of the continent,” Adeline Van Houtte of the Economist
Intelligence Unit wrote on Twitter.

Fayulu’s camp had hailed the AU appeal for the final result to
be put on hold, but Tshisekedi’s entourage branded it
“scandalous”.

The dispute has raised fears that the political crisis that
began when Kabila refused to step down at the end of his
constitutional term in office two years ago could turn into a
bloodbath.

An internet shutdown, ordered by the authorities on December 31
following the election, ended just before final results were
announced in the early hours of Sunday morning.

The vast and chronically unstable country lived through two
regional wars in 1996-97 and 1998-2003, and the previous two
elections, in 2006 and 2011, were marred by bloody clashes.

The AU has taken the firmest line of all major international
bodies with regard to the post-election crisis.

The Southern African Development Community (SADC), a bloc that
includes Angola and South Africa, initially called for a recount
and a unity government.

But in a later communique, it made no mention of those demands,
instead of calling on Congolese politicians to “address any
electoral grievances in line with the Democratic Republic of
Congo’s Constitution and relevant electoral laws”.