2023-09-30 17:32:06
The opponent Martin Fayulu, who has maintained suspense in recent weeks, confirmed on Saturday in Kinshasa his candidacy for the presidential election on December 20 in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
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This is the end of a suspense in the DRC, following the controversy over the electoral register. Opponent Martin Fayulu officially announced his candidacy for the presidential election on December 20 on Saturday, September 30, during a speech in Kinshasa. First designated official candidate of the Lamuka opposition coalition, the threat of a boycott was raised following the refusal of an audit of the electoral register.
He will notably face the current president, Félix Tshisekedi, in power since January 2019, candidate for re-election. Martin Fayulu had already come in second position in the previous election.
“The Lamuka coalition (“Wake up”, in Lingala) has decided to submit my candidacy for the presidential election,” Martin Fayulu told the press. “We will continue to fight to demand transparency in the elections. We did not have it through the audit of the electoral register, we will have it in the surveillance” of the vote, added the opponent, who has been asserting for five years since victory was stolen from him during the presidential election of December 2018.
As of July 2022, his Ecidé party (Commitment to Citizenship and Development), which belongs to the Lamuka coalition, made Martin Fayulu its official candidate for the next presidential election, a ballot coupled with legislative, provincial and municipal elections.
But a year later, while refusing to speak of a “boycott”, he assured that unless he obtained a new audit of the electoral register, his party would not submit candidacy files for the elections.
The “pressure” for an audit of the electoral register would have allowed progress
According to him, out of 43.9 million registered voters, there would be “10 million fictitious ones”. “This time, it will not happen… We refuse to whitewash the fraud (…), we must mobilize to prevent the electoral parody being prepared from happening,” he declared to the press.
In fact, his party did not field any candidate in the legislative and provincial elections, which might suggest that Mr. Fayulu, 66 years old, former executive manager of the oil major ExxonMobil, would not be in the running for the presidential.
Despite the controversy and the opposition’s demands, the Independent National Electoral Commission refused such an audit. But Mr. Fayulu nevertheless estimated that the “pressure” had enabled progress. The president of the electoral commission, he noted, for example, recently declared that the election results would be published “polling station by polling station”.
In the December 2018 presidential election, his competitors included the then government candidate, Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, and that of the historic opposition party Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS), Félix Tshisekedi. The latter was proclaimed winner with 38.5% of the votes, Martin Fayulu coming in 2nd position (34.8%) and Emmanuel Ramazani in 3rd (23%).
Mr. Fayulu, for his part, claimed to have won with 61% of the votes and cried “electoral putsch”. Félix Tshisekedi denies and assures that he won the election.
With AFP
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