Mugabe backs DRC's Kabila victory

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe says Joseph Kabila, sworn in for a second term as president of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), won a “democratic election” despite his main rival disputing the results, state media reported on Wednesday.

“He has won a democratic election,” Mugabe is quoted as saying by the Herald newspaper, commenting on Kabila’s inauguration in Kinshasa on Tuesday.

“We are one with them [Congolese] as they celebrate victory and his party and having won, and won thunderously against [opposition leader Etienne] Tshisekedi,” he added.

“This must send a clear message to those who had other ideas.”

The elections in November were rejected by Tshisekedi while the European Union’s foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton also pointed to “serious deficiencies” in the vote and said the bloc would “re-evaluate its support come the next stages in the Congo’s democratic process”.

Mugabe, a former ally of DRC’s assassinated president Laurent Kabila, who was killed in 2001, was the only African president to attend the inauguration of his son Joseph.

Zimbabwe, apart from importing electricity from the central African country has various business interests in the DRC.—AFP