Defeated DRC candidates urge protest against Tshisekedi

In the aftermath of last month’s Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) election, three defeated presidential candidates are urging their supporters to “show their discontent” on Saturday during President Felix Tshisekedi’s second-term investiture.

The trio, comprising Moise Katumbi, former governor of the central Katanga region and a prominent businessman; Martin Fayulu, who claims to have been robbed in the 2018 presidential election; and Floribert Anzuluni, refrained from calling for rallies or marches. Instead, they issued a joint video press conference on Thursday, urging people to “stand up and say ‘no'” wherever they happen to be.

Tshisekedi’s investiture is scheduled to take place at a vast stadium in the capital, Kinshasa, in the presence of the country’s 100 million inhabitants, of whom over 40 million were registered to vote on December 20 for a president, as well as national and regional lawmakers and municipal councillors.

The voting process encountered challenges, leading to an official one-day extension and continued voting in remote areas in subsequent days, as reported by observers. Despite an earlier opposition rally on December 27 being banned by authorities and disrupted by the police, the defeated candidates have opted against mass action.

Martin Fayulu expressed during the video press conference, “We have stopped mass action; we cannot send people to the slaughterhouse.” He added that “all the Congolese have realized that this was a farce,” referring to the election.

According to the final results, Tshisekedi secured 73.47 percent of the vote, with Katumbi at a distant second with 18.08 percent, Fayulu with about five percent, and Anzuluni with less than one percent.

On Christmas Eve, the archbishop of Kinshasa criticized the elections as a “gigantic, organized mess.” Tshisekedi initially assumed power in the DRC in January 2019 after a disputed election that many observers claimed he had lost.

Scroll to Top