An opposition candidate has been declared winner of the contentious presidential election in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The electoral commission in the wee hours of Thursday declared Felix Tshisekedi winner of the country’s December 30 presidential election.

Now this news has been greeted with some surprise and in fact in what is the latest Martin Fayulu, another top opposition candidate, who had been tipped by many and thought to be in the early results lead has rejected the election results. </s> The Democratic Republic of Congo’s electoral commission declared opposition leader Félix Tshisekedi as the winner of the Dec. 30 presidential election, a stunning announcement that contradicts an unofficial tally by the largest observer mission and throws the Central African nation into uncharted territory.

It is the first time since independence from Belgium that an opposition candidate would take the presidency of the resource-rich country after an election. The 55-year-old Mr. Tshisekedi is set to take over from President... </s> KINSHASA, Congo — The ruling coalition of Congo's outgoing President Joseph Kabila has won a large majority of seats in the national assembly. The electoral commission announced the results early Saturday.

That sharply reduces the chances of dramatic reforms under the declared presidential election winner, opposition leader Felix Tshisekedi. The election runner-up accuses Tshisekedi of a backroom deal with Kabila to win power.

The runner-up, businessman and anti-corruption campaigner Martin Fayulu, has said he will file a court challenge to the election results on Saturday morning.

His opposition coalition says Fayulu won 61 percent of the vote, citing figures compiled by the influential Catholic Church's election observers. The coalition says the figures show Tshieskedi received 18 percent.

The electoral commission says the date for the presidential inauguration is Jan. 22. </s> The dispute over the December 30 presidential vote has raised fears that the political crisis could turn into a bloodbath

KINSHASA, DR Congo – DR Congo's top court said it will give its verdict Saturday, January 19, on final presidential election results which have been challenged at home and abroad, spurning an appeal from the African Union to suspend the announcement.

The Constitutional Court is urgently hearing an appeal over the outcome of the disputed December 30 vote to choose a successor to long-serving President Joseph Kabila, with runner-up Martin Fayulu claiming he was cheated of victory – an assertion repeated elsewhere.

"It (the ruling) will take place today at 3:00 pm (1400 GMT or 10 pm Philippine time)," Constitutional Court spokesman Baudouin Mwehu told Agence France-Presse. However there was no verdict by well after 1500 GMT or 11 pm Philippine time.

Hundreds of supporters of opposition leader Felix Tshisekedi, the declared winner of the election, gathered outside the court holding placards saying "No to interference" and "Independent country" as riot police stood nearby.

On January 10, the electoral commission said Tshisekedi had provisionally won with 38.57 percent of the vote against Fayulu's 34.8 percent.

But Fayulu denounced the figures as an "electoral coup" forged by Tshisekedi and Kabila, and filed an appeal with the Constitutional Court.

At a summit on Thursday, AU leaders said there were "serious doubts" about the vote's provisional results and called for the announcement of the final results to be suspended.

But DR Congo government spokesman Lambert Mende had snubbed the AU demand saying: "I don't think it is the business of the government or even of the African Union to tell the court what it should do."

The AU also announced that its commission chief Moussa Faki Mahamat and Rwanda's President Paul Kagame, currently the AU chairman, were expected to fly to DR Congo on Monday.

The European Union said it joined the AU in inviting "all the Congolese players to work constructively with this (AU) delegation to find a post-electoral solution which respects the Congolese people's vote."

The court is due to give a ruling ahead of the scheduled swearing-in of the next president on Tuesday.

The Financial Times and other foreign media have reported seeing documents that confirm Fayulu as the winner.

"If the court declares Tshisekedi victor, the risk of isolation would be enormous and untenable for a country positioned right in the middle of the continent," Adeline Van Houtte of the Economist Intelligence Unit wrote on Twitter.

Fayulu's camp had hailed the AU appeal for the final result to be put on hold, but Tshisekedi's entourage branded it "scandalous."

The dispute has raised fears that the political crisis that began when Kabila refused to step down at the end of his constitutional term in office two years ago, could turn into a bloodbath.

The US ambassador to Kinshasa Mike Hammer on Saturday protested against an internet shutdown tweeting: "20 days without internet are 20 days too many. It needs to be restored now. Democracies thrive and societies prosper when people are informed and can communicate freely."

The vast and chronically unstable country lived through two regional wars in 1996-97 and 1998-2003, and the previous two elections, in 2006 and 2011, were marred by bloody clashes.

The AU has taken the firmest line of all major international bodies with regard to the post-election crisis.

The Southern African Development Community (SADC), a bloc that includes Angola and South Africa, initially called for a recount and a unity government.

But in a later communique, it made no mention of those demands, instead calling on Congolese politicians to "address any electoral grievances in line with the Democratic Republic of Congo's Constitution and relevant electoral laws." – Rappler.com </s> Democratic Republic of Congo's electoral commission on Thursday declared opposition leader Felix Tshisekedi the winner of a disorganised and contentious Dec. 30 presidential election.

KINSHASA: Democratic Republic of Congo's electoral commission on Thursday declared opposition leader Felix Tshisekedi the winner of a disorganised and contentious Dec. 30 presidential election.

The result could lead to Congo's first democratic transfer of power since independence from Belgium in 1960, with longtime President Joseph Kabila due to step down in coming days.

But vote tallies compiled by Congo's Catholic Church found that another opposition candidate, Martin Fayulu, clearly won the election, two diplomats said, raising the spectre of a standoff that many fear could lead to violence.

Election commission (CENI) president Corneille Nangaa, speaking around 3 a.m. (0200 GMT) at a news conference that appeared timed to avoid any immediate reaction in the streets, said Tshisekedi had won with 38.57 percent of the more than 18 million ballots cast.

"Felix Tshisekedi Tshilombo is declared the provisionally-elected president of Democratic Republic of Congo," Nangaa said to a mixture of cheers and gasps inside CENI headquarters.

Nangaa said Tshisekedi had received more than 7 million votes, compared to about 6.4 million for Fayulu and about 4.4 million for Kabila's hand-picked candidate, Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary.

The result is certain to fuel further suspicion that Tshisekedi, who the last opinion polls before the election showed running well behind Fayulu, struck a power-sharing pact with Kabila.

Tshisekedi's camp has acknowledged contacts since the vote with Kabila's representatives but denies there has been any kind of deal.

Losing candidates, including Fayulu and Shadary, can contest the results before Congo's constitutional court, which has 10 days to hear and rule on any challenges.

The Church's bishops conference said last week that it knew the identity of the winner and demanded that CENI publish accurate results. The Church did not say who it thought the winner was, but briefed diplomats on its conclusions.

More than one million people were kept from voting on election day on Dec. 30 because of an Ebola outbreak and militia violence in opposition strongholds mainly in the east of the country.

Observers said many polling stations opened late and closed early and in some places voting machines malfunctioned.

Kabila, who succeeded his assassinated father in 2001, had wanted to hand over power to Shadary, his former interior minister, when he stands down this month after 18 years in power. </s> KINSHASA (Reuters) - Losing Democratic Republic of Congo presidential candidate Martin Fayulu said on Friday he would challenge the election results in country’s highest court on Saturday at 9 a.m. (0800 GMT).

The national electoral commission on Thursday declared another opposition leader, Felix Tshisekedi, the winner of the Dec. 30 election, but Fayulu’s campaign says its tallies show that Fayulu won a landslide victory. </s> Democratic Republic of Congo's electoral commission on Thursday declared opposition leader Felix Tshisekedi the surprise winner of last month's chaotic presidential election, but the runner-up dismissed the outcome as an "electoral coup".

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In a pre-dawn announcement, the election commission named Tshisekedi, son of the country's late veteran opposition leader, as provisional winner of the bitterly-contested December 30 vote.

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.

Tshisekedi's apparent victory was greeted by celebrations at the headquarters of the Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS), the country's oldest and largest opposition party which was founded by his late father, Etienne.

'A historic vote and a historic win'

The 55-year-old immediately pledged to work closely with current incumbent Joseph Kabila.

"Today we should no longer see him as an adversary, but rather as a partner for democratic change in our country," he told supporters.

'Electoral coup'

But the result was immediately denounced by his opposition rival Martin Fayulu, the runner up, who slammed the announcement as "an electoral coup".

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said the declared outcome was "not consistent" with the results, saying that Fayulu appeared to have won.

>> Read more: DR Congo's Catholic Church says its election tally shows different winner

With the vast central African country increasingly on edge over the long-delayed vote to replace Kabila, who has ruled the country with an iron fist since 2001, the United Nations warned against any resort to violence.

"The Secretary-General calls on all stakeholders to refrain from violence and to channel any eventual electoral disputes through the established institutional mechanisms," spokesman Stephane Dujarric said late Wednesday.

Kabila had been due to step down two years ago, but managed to cling on to power, sparking an escalating political crisis marked by widespread protests that were brutally repressed, leaving dozens of people dead.

The vote finally took place at the end of December, pitting Kabila's handpicked successor Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary against Tshisekedi and Fayulu, a fiery orator who emerged from relative obscurity to take a front seat in the race.

>> Read more: DR Congo’s Felix Tshisekedi: From opposition scion to provisional president-elect

'Ugly scam'

Election chief Corneille Nangaa declared Tshisekedi the winner with 38.57 percent of the vote, just ahead of Fayulu with 34.8 percent.

Shadaray came third with 23.8 percent.

Profile: Felix Tshisekedi

The announcement of an opposition win was a shock as many had expected the results to be stacked in Shadary's favour, prompting heavy international pressure on Kinshasa to respect the wishes of the electorate as the mammoth ballot count was under way.

But Thursday's outcome was swiftly denounced by Fayulu as a sham.

"These results have nothing to do with the truth at the ballot box," he told Radio France International.

"It's a real electoral coup, it's unbelievable," he said. "It's an ugly scam by Nangaa and his political cronies.

"They have stolen the Congolese people's victory and the people will never accept that."

France's Le Drian also said Fayulu had apparently won, pointing to a parallel count by DR Congo's powerful Catholic Church which .

He indicated that the results were at odds with those of the Church, which deployed more than 40,000 people to observe the vote.

Last week, CENCO, the body that represents the country's Catholic bishops, said it knew the outcome of the vote and urged the electoral commission to publish the results "in keeping with truth and justice".

Although it did not name the winner, its announcement drew a sharp rebuke from the ruling coalition.

Calculated risk

Analysts described Tshisekedi's win as "highly surprising" but said it made sense in the context of DRC's political dynamics.

"Kabila did not want to risk announcing Shadary as the winner, which would have triggered violent protests and international condemnation. Instead, he chose to split the opposition by creating a power-sharing deal with Tshisekedi," said Robert Besseling, executive director of risk consultancy EXX Africa.

"Kabila will be able to influence Tshisekedi, who now owes his ascendancy to power to Kabila's control of the electoral commission."

He said the result was "starkly at odds" with CENCO's parallel vote tabulation.

And in a country of 80 million where half the population are Catholic, CENCO's assessment that the outcome was rigged was likely to be widely accepted, he added.

The legacy of DR Congo's Joseph Kabila

Ahead of the results announcement, police deployed throughout Kinshasa, where residents went home early for the second day running fearful of unrest.

CENI is expected to release definitive results on January 15 with the new president to be sworn in three days later.

The last two elections in 2006 and 2011, both of which were won by Kabila, were marred by bloodshed, and many fear a repeat of the violence if there is any sense the result has been fixed.

In 2006, Kabila defeated former warlord Jean-Pierre Bemba in a violence-tainted poll, and five years later, he was re-elected in another vote blighted by bloodshed, chaotic organisation and alleged irregularities.

This time round, Bemba -- who was barred from running -- threw his weight behind Fayulu as did another opposition heavyweight, former Katanga governor Moise Katumbi.

France 24 screen grabs

(AFP) </s> Felix Tshisekedi was confirmed as the president of the Democratic Republic of Congo by the country’s Constitutional Court on Sunday BEN CURTIS/AP

The Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) top court confirmed Felix Tshisekedi as the winner of the nation’s fractious presidential elections on Sunday, rejecting an appeal from an opposition candidate.

The country’s Constitutional Court said that Mr Tshisekedi had won a simple majority, when they announced the final results from the December 30 poll. The court declared Mr Tshisekedi as the “President of the Democratic Republic of Congo by simple majority”.

The judges denied accusations brought forward by runner-up Martin Fayulu, who branded the provisional electoral results released last week as an “electoral coup”, and the product of a secret deal between Mr Tshisekedi and current president Joseph Kabila. Both Mr Kabila and Mr Tshisekedi have denied the claims. </s> The Constitutional Court of the Democratic Republic of the Congo confirmed Felix Tshisekedi’s presidential election win on Sunday while dismissing a challenge from another opposition leader Martin Fayulu who had accused him and the ruling party of stitching up the result.

The Court “proclaims by a simple majority Félix Tshilombo Tshisekedi President-elect of the Democratic Republic of Congo”, said the institution’s President, Benoît Lwambwa Bindu.

With this announcement, Tshisekedi becomes the fifth President of the Democratic Republic of Congo since independence on June 30, 1960.

Tshisekedi is to succeed the outgoing Head of State Joseph Kabila, who has been in power since the murder of his father Laurent-Désiré Kabila 18 years ago on January 16, 2001.

This is the first time that power has been passed peacefully from one man to another in this turbulent country’s history.

Tshisekedi’s swearing-in is scheduled for Tuesday, January 22, according to the latest calendar of the National Independent Electoral Commission (Céni).

Tshisekedi, 55, is the son of the historic opponent Etienne Tshisekedi, who died on February 1 2017 in Brussels. He succeeded his father as head of the Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS).

Tshisekedi will have to work with a Prime Minister from the current pro-Kabila party, who obtained a vast majority in the National Assembly according to the Electoral Commission.
After several delays, the Congolese election commission announces that Félix Tshisekedi is the winner of the December 30 presidential election.