A dozen African leaders congratulated the President of the Democratic Republic of Congo (RDCongo), Félix Tshisekedi, on his re-election in the December 20 elections, despite the rejection of the Congolese opposition and accusations of alleged electoral irregularities
“The Congolese electoral authorities announced the victory of Félix Antoine Tshisekedi with 73% (of the votes). I would like to give you my most sincere congratulations”, declared Azali Assoumani, President of the Comoros and current president of the African Union (AU), on his X account (formerly Twitter).
Also South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, who, on December 28, sent a first contingent of South African soldiers to eastern DRCongo, where more than 100 rebel groups are fighting, to join a new regional force of the Southern African Development Community (SADC).
“The people of DRCongo took a solid step towards consolidating democracy in their country and expressed their desire for a peaceful, secure and prosperous future”, added the South African President, in a statement shortly after Thsisekedi’s victory was announced with 73.23% of the votes, according to electoral authorities.
Since then, Tshisekedi has also been congratulated by the presidents of Kenya, William Ruto of Namibia, Hage Geingob of Senegal, Macky Sall of Tanzania, Samia Suluhu Hassan of Uganda, Yoweri Museveni of Zambia, Hakainde Hichilema and Zimbabwe. Emmerson Mnangagwa.
However, the main opponents, including Martin Fayulu, Moïse Katumbi and Denis Mukwege, rejected the Congolese President’s victory in the presidential elections and called on his supporters to speak out.
Katumbi, who came in second place with 18.08% of the votes, even called for a repeat of the elections on Sunday in the neighboring country of Angola, and classified the results as a “mass fraud”.
Opposition leader Martin Fayulu received just 5.33% of the vote, while the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize winner, gynecologist Denis Mukwege, received less than 1%.
These results have yet to be validated this month by the Congolese Constitutional Court. More than 40 million people – of the country’s more than 100 million inhabitants – were called on December 20 to exercise their democratic right in 75,000 polling stations to vote in the presidential, legislative, provincial and local elections. Around 18 million valid votes were recorded, which represents a participation rate of 43%.
The process was marked by delays and logistical problems, which forced voting to be extended for several days and by allegations of irregularities on the part of the opposition.
The influential Congolese National Episcopal Conference (CENCO), which impartially supervised the elections, indicated last Thursday that there were “numerous cases of irregularities” that could alter the results “in certain places”.
DRCongo is the largest country in sub-Saharan Africa and has enormous mineral wealth (including vast reserves of cobalt, essential for the manufacture of batteries for electric vehicles), but has poor infrastructure across much of the territory.
Furthermore, more than a hundred militias operate in the east of the country, which has seen a new escalation of fighting by the March 23 Movement (M23) since October. Tshisekedi came to power in the 2018 elections, criticized by the opposition and the international community.