Martin Fayulu, who came second in DR Congo’s presidential election, has
appealed to the Constitutional Court to annul the provisional result which
awarded victory to his opposition rival Felix Tshisekedi, his lawyer said
Saturday.
The request was filed on Friday ahead of a 48-hour deadline for any appeals
against the shock result which was announced before dawn on Thursday.
“The request seeks the annulment of the result declaring Felix Tshisekedi president,” Toussaint Ekombe told reporters outside the court.
It was the latest twist in a long-running political crisis which erupted two years ago when President Joseph Kabila refused to step down at the end of his constitutional term in office, sparking massive protests which were brutally repressed.
On December 30, after repeated delays, voters finally went to the polls to choose his successor in an election pitting two opposition candidates, Fayulu and Tshisekedi, against Kabila’s handpicked successor, Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary.
Opinion polls had flagged Fayulu as the clear favourite, although most
observers predicted a result rigged in favour of Shadary. But the results
declared Tshisekedi the victor with 38.57 percent, while Fayulu came second
with 34.8 percent.
The court now has eight days to consider the request.
“I got more than 61 percent of the vote compared with the others, who each
got 18 percent,” Fayulu told AFP.
“Between them, they didn’t get more than 40 percent.”
At stake is political stewardship of the notoriously unstable central African
nation, which has never known a peaceful transition of power since independence
from Belgium in 1960.
Fayulu has denounced the result as an “electoral coup” engineered by
Kabila in which Tshisekedi was “totally complicit”.
Explaining the appeal, the 62-year-old said election chief Corneille Nangaa had
“broken electoral law” and that only a recount would establish the
truth of what happened at the ballot box.
International observers have been closely watching developments in
sub-Saharan Africa’s largest country, which covers an area equivalent to that
of western Europe, with reactions to the election outcome guarded.
Most leaders called for any disagreements to be resolved peacefully in
statements that pointedly lacked any congratulations for Tshisekedi, with the
dispute over the results playing out in the UN Security Council on Friday.
Addressing the Council by video conference, election chief Nangaa pleaded
for “the new authorities to be supported by the international
community”.
But Bishop Marcel Utembi, head of CENCO, which represents DR Congo’s Catholic
bishops, urged the Security Council to ask the election committee to release
data on the counting at polling stations to allow for verification.
Analysts said it was likely Kabila had struck a deal with the 55-year-old
opposition chief to avoid a violent backlash and the international condemnation
that would have followed if Shadary had been declared winner.
In turn, Kabila — who has ruled the country with an iron fist since 2001 —
was likely to seek immunity from prosecution and protection for his family’s
business assets.
Thursday’s pre-dawn announcement brought thousands of Tshisekedi supporters
onto the streets in celebration, while others who had backed Fayulu came out to
protest.
On Friday, the authorities imposed an overnight curfew in Kikwit, a Fayulu
stronghold east of Kinshasa, where five civilians had died during a protest on
Thursday, the mayor told AFP.
Another person also died during a protest in the eastern city of Goma, police
said.
