Congo’s Félix Tshisekedi dismisses talk of rigged presidential election

The Congolese president has vowed that elections this month in sub-Saharan Africa’s largest country will be “transparent and democratic” in the face of fears about a new round of vote-rigging to secure his second term.

“The elections are free,” Félix Tshisekedi told the Financial Times in Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, insisting that talk of corruption around the December 20 vote was “noise from the opposition that the international community wants to hear”.

“There’s always these prejudices about our countries — people always think that in Africa there’s cheating,” he said in an interview. “When it happens in America or in France, we hear excuses and ‘No, it’s all good, it’s fine’. But when it’s Africa, it’s ‘Oh yes, it’s always like that’.”

However, election rivals have cast doubt on the process, while Brussels has cancelled its observer mission due to “technical constraints beyond the control of the EU”, with European diplomats saying the DRC hampered permissions for election monitors to use satellite communications equipment.

The DRC, home to more than 100mn people, has enormous mineral wealth such as cobalt, a critical component in battery technology, yet it remains one of the world’s most under-developed countries, and one racked by poverty and violence.

Tshisekedi — whose father Étienne became a leading opposition figure after serving as prime minister under the kleptocratic ruler Mobutu Sese Seko when the country was called Zaire — took office after it was announced he had won the 2018 presidential election.

But not only did the opposition question the result, but the powerful Catholic Church said the official tally did not correspond with the data from its tens of thousands of observers. An FT analysis of two separate collections of voter data showed that his opponent Martin Fayulu was the winner.

Tshisekedi has always denied the election fraud and is seeking a second term at the helm of a multi-party Sacred Union coalition comprised of more than 200 parties.

“We want a great victory, a convincing victory” this time, Tshisekedi said during a late-night break from campaigning, with one eye on a televised football match between Paris Saint-Germain, his favourite team, and Monaco.

Tshisekedi’s main election rivals — Moïse Katumbi, a former governor of the copper-rich Katanga region and owner of the country’s most successful football team, and Fayulu, a Paris-educated former ExxonMobil executive who calls himself “president-elect” — both cast doubt on the electoral process in separate FT interviews.

Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo, archbishop of Kinshasa, was equally sceptical, saying the church had “no certainty that the elections will be free, inclusive, transparent and peaceful”.

Tshisekedi shrugged off the claims. “Every time, the opposition cries ‘thief!’, but . . . they’ve all came to compete [in the election]. If there was no chance for them to win, they wouldn’t have come. They came because they think there’s a chance.”

A particular allegation concerns irregularities in the voters’ registry that could play in favour of Tshisekedi, something the electoral commission has denied. There is also distrust in the system for transmitting the results.

The US government last month called for a fair election and said it would consider imposing visa restrictions “against those undermining democracy” in the DRC in the event of election-rigging, corruption or voter intimidation.

Trésor Kibangula, an analyst with Ebuteli Congolese Research Institute of Politics, Governance and Violence in Kinshasa, said it was hard to imagine a Congolese presidential election without cheating.

“We’re really in an electoral process which is sorely lacking in confidence and everyone’s wary. The stage is set for us to, once again, go into an electoral contestation,” he said.  

Yet others said that Tshisekedi — whose campaign slogan Bomoko, Bokengi, Bofuluki in the Lingala language translates as “unity, security, prosperity” — had a chance to more or less legitimately win the most votes.

Not only does he have the visibility of five years in power and the backing of the state machinery, but the opposition is split between three main candidates. The third is Denis Mukwege, a Nobel peace laureate and gynaecological surgeon who has spent much of his life helping victims of sexual violence in war-ravaged eastern Congo, where more than 100 rebel groups vie for control of resources.

A senior foreign official said it was “possible for Tshisekedi to win if the opposition continues to be divided”, and that “there may be no need to tamper with the results”.

Tshisekedi is also likely to be boosted by the initial rollout of a $1.6bn plan to build roads, schools and hospitals, as well as the introduction of free education and healthcare for some Congolese.

“The last time, I wasn’t very optimistic,” he said of how his chances have improved from five years ago. “No more. Because we have a track record that has convinced people, and I think people want to see more.”

And if he loses? “If it goes to someone else and I’ve really lost legitimately . . . [then] it’s democracy and we have to accept defeat.”