Congo heads for isolation after rebuffing African Union’s calls
Regional group had called to suspend presidential election result
The Democratic Republic of Congo took a step towards continental isolation on Friday after it rebuffed calls from the African Union to back down from confirming the winner of December’s presidential election.
The latest twist in Congo’s election saga followed a Financial Times analysis of leaked polling data on Tuesday that pointed to huge electoral fraud. According to that analysis, opposition leader Martin Fayulu was the clear winner of last month’s vote while Felix Tshisekedi, the rival opposition candidate who was declared the victor, should have finished a distant second.
“The heads of state and government attending the meeting concluded that there were serious doubts on the conformity of the provisional results, as proclaimed by the National Independent Electoral Commission, with the votes cast,” the AU said on Thursday. “Accordingly, the heads of state and government called for the suspension of the proclamation of the final results of the elections.”
The group, which included the African members of the UN Security Council and representatives from at least six regional bodies, said it would dispatch a high-level delegation to Congo to find a solution to “the post-electoral crisis in the country”.
Congo’s government said the AU had no authority to instruct the country’s constitutional court to halt plans to rule on the outcome of the vote.
“No country in the world can accept that its judicial process be controlled by an (outside) organisation,” Lambert Mende, government spokesperson, told Reuters.
The robust AU intervention sets up an inevitable confrontation between the African leaders and the Congolese government. The constitutional court was set to rule on the election this weekend and Mr Tshisekedi’s inauguration is scheduled for Tuesday.
If Congo ignores the regional body and pushes ahead, the possibility that African leaders would refuse to recognise the new president is strong, and other governments would probably follow their lead. The EU said on Friday that it backed the AU’S intervention and called on the Congolese to co-operate with the incoming AU delegation.
Congo is a vast country of 80m people and a big producer of copper and cobalt, an essential ingredient in smartphones and electric vehicles. With President Joseph Kabila stepping down after 18 years in power, December’s vote was set to be the country’s first transfer of power via the ballot box.
Mr Fayulu has challenged the election results at the constitutional court, but until now few observers believed that the body, which was set up by the outgoing president, would rule in his favour. Mr Fayulu’s supporters alleged that, when voters failed to come out in enough numbers for Mr Kabila’s chosen successor Emmanuel Shadary, who finished third, the election commission was told to install Mr Tshisekedi instead.
“The African Union publicly stating that there are serious doubts about the veracity of a member’s announced election results and calling for a suspension of the certification process is new territory,” said a senior western diplomat. “Even couched in diplomatic language the communiqué is a bombshell.”
The announcement from the meeting chaired by Paul Kagame, Rwanda’s president, was starkly different from the position taken by the smaller Southern African Development Community earlier in the day.
“We believe that the situation in the DRC has been managed and handled well and international constitutional processes are ongoing,” SADC said. “Any electoral grievances must be addressed in line with the DRC constitution and relevant electoral laws.”.
Representatives from SADC, an inter-governmental group of 16 African countries including Congo, also participated in the wider AU meeting but it is not clear whether they changed their position or were over-ruled.