Current Congolese President Félix Tshisekedi has been re-elected for a second term, according to preliminary results. The election committee Céni announced this on Sunday, ten days after the polls. Tshisekedi’s victory was expected, after the current president had already taken a large lead in the partial results.
Tshisekedi gets 73.34 percent. The first pursuer is Moïse Katumbi, the powerful businessman and former governor from Katanga. He gets 18.08 percent. Other big names from the opposition, such as Martin Fayulu, finished with just 5 percent. Nobel Prize winner Denis Mukwege even achieved only 0.22 percent.
The results announced by the Céni on Sunday afternoon will now go to the Constitutional Court. The Court must now validate the results, but no problems are expected for Tshisekedi. That will probably happen on January 10.
Katumbi and other opposition candidates have already called for a cancellation in recent days, because numerous problems had to organize a second election day in many places. In some remote places, voting even took place until December 27, according to observers from the Catholic and Protestant churches.
Elsewhere, especially in the restive east of the country, Congolese were unable to vote. “We reject this sham,” said a joint statement from Katumbi and eight other opposition candidates on Sunday. “We ask our people to take to the streets en masse as soon as this election fraud is declared.”
No confidence Constitutional Court
The opposition previously indicated that it has no confidence in the Constitutional Court, which is populated by Tshisekedi loyalists. After all, the Court is competent to rule on any appeal against the result.
The observers of the churches, which were deployed across the country, noted that one candidate “largely stood out from the others, with more than half of the votes.” At the same time, they noted “numerous cases of irregularities” “that will affect the integrity of the results of several elections in certain places.”
More than 42 million Congolese, out of a total population of over 100 million, could vote in the quadruple elections: in addition to presidential elections, elections for parliament, provincial councils and municipal councils were also held. According to the chairman of the electoral commission, more than 18 million Congolese ultimately voted, or a turnout of less than 45 percent.
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