President attends Kabila’s inauguration

Union. It will also include such projects as building hospitals and schools. President Kabila said the electoral process represented the first time in Congo’s history that a presi­dential mandate had ended without a crisis and praised citizens for their discipline.

“You were asked to choose on the one hand between an illusory promise based on incen­diary language, and on the other hand the consolidation of peace and stability.”
President Kabila won 48.95 percent of the vote, while Mr Tshisekedi of the Union for Democracy and Social Progress got 32.33 per­cent.

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Speaking to journalists after the inaugura­tion ceremony, President Mugabe said: “We are one with them (Congolese) as they cele­brate the victory and his party and having won, and won thunderously against Tshisekedi. He has won a democratic election.
“This must send a clear message to those who had other ideas. Any attempt to under­mine that democratic Government will be resisted by Africa, Sadc and Zimbabwe which has been a partner to the Congolese people.”

The result has been recognised in Zim­babwe, South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Burundi and the Central African Republic.
The South African Foreign Ministry said the Congolese elections were conducted in accordance with the country’s electoral law, the principles of the Southern Africa Develop­ment Community and those of the African Union.

The US government has however, said the polls were flawed.
This was the second presidential election since a 1998-2003 war that claimed over 5 mil­lion people and was seen as key to cementing gains in a country that lies on the bottom of the UN index for human development, a measure of average wealth, education and life expectancy.

President Kabila assumed power after his father, Laurent, was assassinated in 2001.
He later won elections in 2006, in polls set by the UN.

Ambassadors and ministers from South Africa, Gabon, Burundi, Botswana, China, Mozambique, Lesotho, Egypt, Cuba, Russia, Togo, Namibia and Chad witnessed the cere­mony.
President Mugabe and his delegation flew back home last night. – Herald Reporter/AFP/Xin­hua/Reuters.