The Constitutional Court of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) confirmed, this Tuesday, the results of the December 20 elections, which declared President Félix Tshisekedi the winner, rejecting a petition from an opposition candidate to annul the vote
“Félix Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo was elected President of the DRC by the majority of votes cast”, declared Judge Kamuleta Badibanga Dieudonne, President of the Constitutional Court.
The court found a petition by opposition candidate Theodore Ngoy to redo the vote was unfounded. Ngoy, who received less than 1% of the vote, was the only candidate to file an appeal.
According to the court, Tshisekedi obtained 73.47% of the votes instead of the 73.34% previously announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI), as electoral authorities invalidated the results in several constituencies due to irregularities.
Tshisekedi’s inauguration for a second term is scheduled for January 20, despite criticism from his main opponents.
The former governor of the former province of Katanga (South), Moïse Katumbi, who came second with 18.08% of the votes, the influential Martin Fayulu, who obtained 5.33% of the votes, and the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize winner , gynecologist Denis Mukwege, who had it less than 1%. Around 18 million people voted in the elections, which recorded a participation rate of over 40%, according to the electoral commission.
The vote was marked by logistical problems. Many polling stations opened late or did not open at all. The DRC has a history of disputed elections that can turn violent, and many Congolese have little trust in the country’s institutions.
Before the results were announced last month, opposition candidates said they rejected the results and called for the mobilization of the population.
In a statement made earlier this month, Moïse Katumbi accused the electoral commission of planning chaos to keep the regime in power and called for the resignation of the head of the commission.
“His resignation is non-negotiable, because, more than anyone else, he mismanaged the entire electoral process, which ended up being nothing more than an electoral farce,” said Katumbi.
Neither he nor other opposition candidates appealed to the Constitutional Court, saying they did not believe it would rule independently.