Presidential election: Preliminary result: 73.3 percent for Congo’s president

In the presidential election in the Democratic Republic of Congo, incumbent Félix Tshisekedi clearly prevailed according to the provisional results. As the electoral commission announced, the politician, who is considered pro-Western, received 13.2 million votes. That is 73.3 percent of the votes cast. The official final results will be announced by the Constitutional Court of Africa’s second largest country.

Even before the provisional results of the election on December 20th were announced, nine opposition candidates called for new elections on Sunday and declared that they did not want to recognize the results of the electoral commission. Demonstrations are expected in connection with the election in Kinshasa as well as in a number of other cities, especially in the east of the country.

Tshisekedi was given the best chance in the election – also because the opposition had not managed to agree on a common candidate. At the beginning of his first term in office, he announced that he wanted to transform the country into an African Germany. The businessman Moise Katumbi, who is considered the most promising opponent, and eight other candidates criticized irregularities in the election at a joint appearance on Sunday and called for new elections with an “independent electoral commission”.

Around 44 million people were called to vote. The resource-rich Central African country, which is the size of Western Europe, has a total population of 100 million. Members of the national parliament and regional parliaments in the country’s provinces as well as local representatives were also elected. However, in many polling stations it was not possible to vote on the actual election day due to missing voter lists, defective voting machines or other problems, so the vote had to be extended at short notice and voting took place on several days.