Despite government restrictions on the demonstration and early results that indicate the incumbent has a sizable advantage, opposition candidates in the presidential election in the Democratic Republic of the Congo intend to march through the nation’s capital on Wednesday
Despite government restrictions on the demonstration and early results that indicate the incumbent has a sizable advantage, Congo Opposition Leaders Plans Protest Over Early Election Results
One of President Felix Tshisekedi’s primary rivals in the election scheduled for December 20, Martin Fayulu, stated in an interview that the opposition candidates who had called the joint demonstration over purported irregularities in the election would march because they were certain there had been vote fraud.
“We are going to protest because we can’t accept another electoral coup d’etat,” Fayulu told newsmen.
He was speaking hours after Vice Prime Minister Peter Kazadi said the march had no legal basis and was aimed at undermining the work of the election commission which was still compiling results.
“No government in the world can accept this, so we will not let it happen,” Kazadi told a news conference, adding that the opposition should wait for the full results rather than protest.
Congo, Africa’s second-largest nation and a significant producer of cobalt and copper, is prone to instability due to election disputes, which exacerbate the country’s already severe poverty and insecurity in its eastern area.
Following a campaign marred by violence, there were delays in the delivery of election kits, broken equipment, and disjointed voter registers during the actual vote.
The protest organisers have fiercely criticised the CENI election commission’s decision to allow voters to cast ballots at polling places that were closed on election day, claiming it is unconstitutional and called for a complete rerun of the entire process.
Additionally, a few impartial observers claimed that the vote’s integrity was jeopardised by the delay.
Although CENI has admitted that there were delays on December 20, it has refuted claims that the election’s legitimacy was damaged by extending some voting.
It began publishing results over the weekend, and as of Tuesday, about 79% of the approximately 6.1 million votes cast have been tabulated, placing Tshisekedi ahead of his 18 rivals.
With over 14% and more than 4% of the vote, respectively, businessman Moise Katumbi and former energy executive Martin Fayulu placed second and third, respectively.
The commission has not provided information about the percentage of the roughly 44 million registered voters who cast ballots, nor has it indicated what the most recent figure means in terms of the total number of votes.
