Kabila wins of DRC presidential election

The provisional results were announced yesterday, after several days of unplanned delays.
Kabila won 48.97 percent of the 18.14 million ballots cast, with veteran opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi winning 32.3  percent, election commission chief Daniel Ngoy Mulunda announced. Voter turnout was 58.8 percent, he said.

“These results are not a huge surprise. Preliminary results or partial results have been released by the election commission since last Friday, that really indicated that the incumbent Joseph Kabila had an unassailable, insurmountable lead in these elections,” reported Al Jazeera’s Yvonne Ndege from Kinshasa, the country’s capital.
The opposition had earlier rejected those partial results, and threatened “serious unrest” across the country if President Kabila was declared the winner, Ndege reported.

A spokesman for Tshisekedi said that the result was “totally unacceptable”. “It is a totally unacceptable result. You can just look around Kinshasa or the rest of the country to see how many people are against these results. The population is totally disoriented,” Alexis Mutanda told Reuters, minutes after the election commission issued the results.
Mutanda said that his party had not yet decided on its next move, but that it had “no faith” in the credibility of the country’s Supreme Court, which is to ratify the results.

In the tightly controlled pro-Kabila downtown neighbourhood in Kinshasa, near the election commission, people hung out of balconies cheering after the results were released.
Police in riot gear in trucks stood at attention.
“There is a lot of confusion regarding why results were delayed on Thursday,” Al Jazeera’s Azad Essa, reporting from Kinshasa, said.

“Official reasons are seen as a glaze over the real internal wrangling over results reportedly taking place within the commission itself.”
The commission has said the delay was due to double-checking of figures against tally sheets from polling stations to avoid mistakes.
Kinshasa remained quiet but tense yesterday morning. Roads were relatively empty with most people still at home or in their townships.

President Kabila, in power since 2001, will now serve out another five-year term if the results are ratified by the country’s apex court. He was expected to hold on to his position, having run against a divided opposition field of 10 candidates in the single-round race.

Although international observers said the 28 November vote was flawed, they have stopped short of calling it fraudulent.
Most say the irregularities were not widespread enough to have caused a change in outcome. However, the perception among opposition supporters is that Tshisekedi won.

The conflict-prone country has been on edge since the polls which were preceded by deadly clashes between police and opposition supporters in Kinshasa.
Police have been out in force in the capital and about 20,000 soldiers are on stand-by at military bases with security forces seemingly determined to quash any opposition demonstrations before they could start.

Soldiers from Kabila’s presidential guard were posted at intersections leading to his residence in the Gombe neighbourhood yesterday.
Speaking to Al Jazeera, Nshole Babula, the secretary-general of Union of Bishops of Congo, said he was worried about the prospect of violence: “We are worried about what might happen when results are released because the opposition says they will protest and we are concerned to see so much of police presence in the city.” — Al Jazeera.