France and Belgium are challenging the outcome of DR
Congo's presidential election, with France's foreign minister saying the
declared victory of opposition chief Felix Tshisekedi was "not
consistent" with the results and that his rival Martin Fayulu appeared to
have won.
In remarks made just hours after the provisional results
were announced on Thursday, Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said
Tshisekedi's opposition rival Fayulu, who was declared the runner up, should
have been declared the winner.
"It really seems that the declared results ... are not
consistent with the true results," he told France's CNews channel.
"On the face of it, Mr Fayulu was the leader coming out of these
elections."
He said DR Congo's powerful Catholic Church, which deployed
more than 40,000 observers to monitor the elections, knew who had really won
the vote with their observations suggesting a win for Fayulu.
"CENCO (National Episcopal Conference of the Congo)
carried out an inspection and declared a result which was totally
different," he said, referring to the body representing the country's
Catholic bishops.
Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders also cast doubt on
the election result, saying his country would use its temporary seat on the UN
Security Council to seek clarification about Tshisekedi surprise victory.
"We have some doubts that we need to check and which
will be debated in the coming days in the Security Council," Reynders,
whose country was Congo's former colonial power, told Belgian public broadcaster
RTBF.
Democratic Republic of Congo's electoral commission on
Thursday declared opposition leader Tshisekedi the winner of last month's
chaotic presidential election, but the runner-up dismissed the outcome as an
"electoral coup".
Last week, CENCO said it knew the outcome of the contested
December 30 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.
The provisional results were announced earlier on Thursday,
putting Tshisekedi on course to take over as president, replacing Joseph Kabila
who ruled the nation for nearly 18 years.
In a country which has never known a peaceful handover of
power since gaining independence from Belgium in 1960, Le Drian called for
calm.
"It is crucial to keep calm, to avoid confrontations
and to ensure there is clarity about the results which are the opposite of what
we expected, of what was projected," he added.
Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, the hand-picked candidate of
long-time President Joseph Kabila was third with about 4.4 million votes.
Barnabe Kikaya Bin Karubi, one of Kabila's top advisors,
accepted the loss of the ruling party's preferred candidate.
"Of course we are not happy as our candidate lost, but
the Congolese people have chosen and democracy has triumphed," Kikaya told
Reuters news agency shortly after Tshisekedi was declared the winner.
The announcement of Tshisekedi victory came hours after the
riot police were deployed at the commission's headquarters in Kinshasa amid
fears of violence due to the disputed result.
Election observers reported a number of irregularities
during the vote and the opposition alleged it was marred by fraud.
The result could lead to the vast country's first
democratic transfer of power since independence from Belgium in 1960, with
Kabila due to leave office this month after 18 years in power - and two years
after the official end of his mandate. Aljazeera
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