France says DR Congo runner-up is apparent winner

France on Thursday challenged the outcome of Democratic Republic
of Congo’s presidential election, saying the declared victory of
opposition chief Felix Tshisekedi was “not consistent” with the
results and that his rival Martin Fayulu appeared to have won.

In remarks made just hours after the provisional results were
announced, Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Tshisekedi’s
opposition rival Fayulu, who was declared the runner up, should
have been declared the winner.

“It really seems that the declared results … are not consistent
with the true results,” he told France’s CNews channel.

“On the face of it, Mr Fayulu was the leader coming out of these
elections. ”

He said DRC’s powerful Catholic Church, which deployed more than
40 000 observers to monitor the elections, knew who had really won
the vote with their observations suggesting a win for Fayulu.

“CENCO carried out an inspection and declared a result which was
totally different,” he said, referring to the body representing the
country’s Catholic bishops.

Last week, CENCO said it knew the outcome of the contested
December 30 vote and urged the electoral commission to publish the
results “in keeping with truth and justice”.

Although it did not name the winner, its announcement drew a
sharp rebuke from the ruling coalition.

The provisional results were announced earlier on Thursday,
putting Tshisekedi on course to take over as president, replacing
Joseph Kabila who ruled the nation for nearly 18 years.

In a country which has never known a peaceful handover of power
since gaining independence from Belgium in 1960, Le Drian called
for calm.

“It is crucial to keep calm, to avoid confrontations and to
ensure there is clarity about the results which are the opposite of
what we expected, of what what projected,” he added.