Reject DRC election result – call to international community not to turn blind eye – FT

LONDON — It is the end of the Kabila era in the DRC, but it seems that it is not the end of election rigging. Opposition leader Felix Tshisekedi was declared as the winner, but another opposition leader, Martin Fayulu who came second in the December elections, is crying foul play and is taking his case to the country's Constitutional Court. Backed by the country's Catholic Church, he wants a recount. SADC has suggested a unity government, which was implemented so successfully in South Africa and have added its voice to that of UN observers and the European Union for a recount. The DRC is four times bigger than France with extensive mining resources and the potential to destabilise the whole region; it may serve the international community and investors better to put pressure on the DRC to get this election right than accept a flawed election. – Linda van Tilburg

By Thulasizwe Sithole

The declaration of Felix Tshisekedi as the winner of the Presidential elections in the Democratic Republic of the Congo took everybody by surprise. It ended the rule of Joseph Kabila, but the joy was short-lived when it became clear that Tshisekedi may not have been the real winner. The Financial Times reports that according to a "credible parallel tabulation", it was Martin Fayulu, another opposition leader and former executive from ExxonMobil who managed to attract the most votes. The paper also alludes to a backroom deal between Kabila who ruled the past 17 years and Tshisekedi, and says while Kabila may be congratulating himself on his cunning plan, "time and time again, through sheer force of will, the Congolese people has thwarted his plans."

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