Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) presidential candidate Jean-Pierre Bemba’s coalition on Tuesday rejected results published so far, which showed his rival President Joseph Kabila poised to win a historic election.
”The Union for the Nation will not accept an electoral hold-up that aims to steal the victory from the Congolese people,” the coalition said in a statement, which questioned the impartiality of the DRC’s Independent Electoral Commission.
Although the commission has not yet declared an official winner, provisional results from 159 out of 169 constituencies, published late on Monday, gave Kabila 59,2% and Bemba 40,8% of votes from the October 29 run-off, the climax of the post-war polls.
The Bemba camp’s blunt public challenge to the results so far were certain to stir up tensions in DRC’s riverside capital, Kinshasa, where gun battles between supporters of the two rival candidates killed four people on Saturday.
Bemba’s coalition said if it was found that the electoral commission was cheating, as it has already previously alleged, then it would not feel obliged to respect accords made with the Kabila side to peacefully accept the election results.
United Nations and European Union peacekeeping troops in DRC, a vast, former Belgian colony which is struggling to emerge from years of war and chaos, have been on high alert in Kinshasa following Saturday’s violence. — Reuters