Felix Tshisekedi declared winner of disputed DRC presidential election

Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) opposition leader Felix Tshisekedi has been declared the winner of the disputed presidential poll after garnering 38.57% of more than the 18 million votes cast.

The results which had been delayed for more than a week throwing the country into a state of uncertainty were immediately rejected by Martin Fayulu who emerged second.

Fayulu was the presumed winner of the election after being backed by a number of the country’s opposition bigwigs. He also led in popularity polls before December 30 which was the first day of the election.

Corneille Nangaa, head of the country’s electoral commission announced the results at 3am (02:00 GMT) in a news conference that was craftily tailored to ensure that there was no immediate violence in the streets.

Tshisekedi received more than seven million votes against Fayulu’s 6.4 million votes.

Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, the hand-picked candidate of long-time President Joseph Kabila was third after garnering 4.4 million votes.

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The electoral comission’s announcement came after anti-riot police were deployed at the comission’s headquarters over fears of possible unrest.

The result could lead to the vast country’s first democratic transfer of power since independence from Belgium in 1960; Kabila who is the incumbent is slated to hand over to Tshikedi after having a grip on power for 18 years and after the end of his mandate.

However independent observers have raised concerns over the credibility of the poll.

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The Catholic Church caused a storm last week after hinting that Fayulu had won the election.

In a conference last week, the Church’s bishops said that they knew the identity of the winner and demanded that the electoral commission declare the results.

They did not explicitly say that Fayulu had won the election.