See the recovery efforts in Gaza as ceasefire appears to hold 'Is everything I'm trying to do pointless? ': Syrians helpless in face of 'sham' election Brother of journalist detained in Myanmar says family is hopeful Report: US companies may have benefited from forced labor of Uyghurs Residents stand near stalls along a road amidst debris while strong winds batter Balasore district in Odisha state on May 26, 2021 as Cyclone Yaas barrels towards India's eastern coast in the Bay of Bengal. (Photo by Dibyangshu SARKAR / AFP) (Photo by DIBYANGSHU SARKAR/AFP via Getty Images) France's President Emmanuel Macron (L) and Rwanda's President Paul Kagame speak as they walk in the grounds of The Presidential Palace in Kigali on May 27, 2021, after their press conference and prior to their official luncheon. - French President Emmanuel Macron arrived in Rwanda on May 27, 2021, for a highly symbolic visit aimed at moving on from three decades of diplomatic tensions over France's role in the 1994 genocide in the country. Macron is the first French leader since 2010 to visit the East African nation, which has long accused France of complicity in the killing of some 800,000 mostly Tutsi Rwandans. (Photo by Ludovic MARIN / AFP) (Photo by LUDOVIC MARIN/AFP via Getty Images) Relative of detained Iranian-Americans fears they will not survive Presidential candidate Felix Tshisekedi (C) arrives for a meeting between CENI, SADC and other presidential candidates in Kinshasa on December 29, 2018, one day ahead of the general elections. (Photo by Luis TATO / AFP) (Photo credit should read LUIS TATO/AFP/Getty Images) (CNN) — The Congo’s Catholic Church has rejected the results of the Central African nation’s presidential election, saying they don’t match the data collected by its observers. There was widespread surprise Thursday after the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s electoral commission announced that opposition leader Felix Tshisekedi had won the presidency. Another opposition leader, Martin Faluyu, who was widely expected to be victorious, categorically rejected the outcome and called for the winner to be “the person who really was our people’s choice.” TUTONDELE MIANKENDA/AFP/AFP/Getty Images President Joseph Kabila has ruled the Congo with an iron fist since 2001. “We take note of the publication of the provisional results of the presidential election which, for the first time in the recent history of our country, opens the way to change at the top of the state,” said a statement by the Catholic group known as the National Episcopal Conference of Congo. “However, from the analysis of the elements observed by this mission, we find that the results of the presidential election … do not correspond to the data collected by our observation mission from the polling and counting stations.” The conference said it had deployed more than 40,000 observers to all polling centers across the country. French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian also said the election results did not match what was witnessed during the vote count. Besides Tshisekedi and Fayulu, the other contender was former Interior Minister Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, the preferred successor of President Joseph Kabila. The results came after nearly two weeks of speculation and reports of irregularities in the December 30 vote. If deemed legitimate, it would be the country’s first democratic transition of power since it gained independence from Belgium in 1960. Either way, the stage now seems set for the exit of Kabila, who has ruled the resource-rich nation with an iron fist since 2001. As the Congo’s population of 80 million awaited the highly anticipated outcome of the vote, the internet and text-messaging services were shut down on January 1. Kabila told Reuters the shutdown was done to preserve public order after “fictitious results” were circulated on social media. Congolese told CNN that internet services were reinstated Thursday, but before then some people resorted to using satellite feeds routed from Europe. Mixed reactions followed Tshisekedi’s win Thursday. Residents in the capital of Kinshasa took to the streets to celebrate his victory. But the mood was somber in Goma, where Fayulu supporters were dispersed by anti-riot police deployed to many areas in the city. The country’s bishops urged “everyone to show civic maturity” and to avoid any violence. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s office issued a measured response Thursday to the vote, commending “all parties and stakeholders in the DRC for ensuring peace and stability during the election processes.” The statement did not congratulate Tshisekedi or mention the reported irregularities. US State Department warns Americans to leave The election had been deemed a pivotal moment for the Congo, determining whether the beleaguered country could transition into a true democracy. But the vote came at a difficult time. The eastern Congo is battling the country’s worst outbreak of Ebola, and violent protests erupted after the Independent National Electoral Commission announced that voters in the Ebola-stricken cities of Beni and Butembo – opposition strongholds – would not cast their ballots until March for security reasons. Yumbi also had elections postponed until March due to violence. It is unclear now how those late votes might affect the result. Furthermore, before the election, Kabila, 47, was criticized for implementing electronic voting machines in a country with sparse access to power. A fire in Kinshasa weeks before the election destroyed 80% of the city’s electronic voting machines, doing nothing to assuage concerns around voting methods. Riot police were deployed this week in the capital in anticipation of mass violence. The US State Department on Wednesday advised all Americans to leave the country. ’I don’t think that Kabila is Putin’ Tshisekedi, 55, had not been expected to win. In the run-up to the vote, speculation had mounted that Kabila would install Shadary as a placeholder president while he ruled from the shadows until 2023, when he could run again. Under the Congo’s Constitution, a president can serve only two terms. Kabila’s second term expired in 2016, meaning the election was long overdue. “People thought that Kabila would try to deploy a scenario like (Vladimir) Putin did with (Dmitry) Medvedev and remain the man he always was,” said Kris Berwouts, a Kinshasa-based author of several books about Central Africa. “But I don’t think that Congo is Russia, and I don’t think that Kabila is Putin.” Congo is blessed with huge deposits of precious minerals, such as diamonds, gold and tantalum. While in power, Kabila has accumulated vast wealth. From 1999 to 2002, his regime transferred ownership of at least $5 billion in assets from the state-mining sector to private companies under its control, according to the United Nations. Now, Kabila’s status in the country, which produces about two-thirds of the world’s cobalt, looks unsure. But Congo’s political past is full of unexpected outcomes. The country’s first Prime Minister, Patrice Lumumba, was executed by firing squad in 1961, and military dictator Mobutu Sese Seko came to power in a coup. After three decades of iron-fist rule, Mobutu was overthrown in 1997 by rebel leader Laurent-Désiré Kabila, who was assassinated nearly four years later. Joseph Kabila inherited the presidency from his father. Tshisekedi also comes from a storied political background. His father, Étienne Tshisekedi, founded the Union for Democracy and Social Progress, the oldest and largest opposition party of the Congo. Felix Tshisekedi took over the party following his father’s death in 2017. CORRECTION: This story has been updated to correct the reason the election was postponed in Yumbi. CNN’s David McKenzie reported from Johannesburg, Radina Gigova from Atlanta and journalist Patrick Felix Abely from Goma, Congo. CNN’s Stephanie Busari, Bukola Adebayo, Jenni Marsh and Saskya Vandoorne contributed to this report.<doc-sep>The African Union has issued a surprise last-minute demand for the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s government to suspend the announcement of final results of the deeply disputed presidential election. DRC’s constitutional court is poised to rule as early as Friday on a challenge filed by the election’s declared runner-up. Martin Fayulu has requested a recount, alleging fraud. In a statement released late on Thursday, the AU said there were “serious doubts” over the outcome, and said heads of state and government agreed to “urgently dispatch” a high-level delegation to DRC with “the view to reaching a consensus on a way out of the post-electoral crisis”. “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 verdict of the ballot boxes,” the statement said. The DRC government dismissed the request and said it was up to judges at the court to respond. “The independence of our judiciary is no problem,” said government spokesman Lambert Mende. Some fear the election dispute could lead to violence in the country. Jason Stearns, director of the Congo Research Group at New York University, called the move “truly incredible” on Twitter. This is truly incredible. Usually, the African Union defers to the subregion, so @SADC_News. In this case they departed dramatically, asking Constitutional Court not to decide (as it must per Congolese law) on election results and wait for an AU mission. https://t.co/P9ESxjU62j — Jason Stearns (@jasonkstearns) January 17, 2019 DRC faces the extraordinary situation of an election allegedly rigged in favour of the opposition. Fayulu accuses the government of outgoing president Joseph Kabila of falsifying the results to declare opposition leader Félix Tshisekedi the winner after the ruling party candidate did poorly. Fayulu has cited figures compiled by the influential Catholic church’s 40,000 election observers that found he won 61% of the vote. Two sets of leaked data show that Fayulu won the election by a landslide, according to an investigation published this week by Radio France International and other media working with the Congo Research Group. In the first set of data, attributed to DRC’s electoral commission and representing 86% of the votes, Fayulu won 59.4% while Tshisekedi received 19%. The second set of data, from the Catholic church’s mission, represents 43% of the votes. In it, Tshisekedi and ruling party candidate Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary each received less than 20%. Fayulu, a lawmaker and businessman who is outspoken about cleaning up DRC’s sprawling corruption, is widely seen as posing more of a threat to Kabila, his allies and the vast wealth they have amassed. Tshisekedi, the son of charismatic opposition leader Étienne who died in 2017, is relatively untested and has said little since the 30 December election. Pressure from African nations is seen as having more of an impact on DRC’s government, which was annoyed by western pressure during more than two years of turbulent election delays. The AU statement reflects serious concern by states about the threat of more unrest in DRC that could spill across borders and destabilise its many neighbours. The election had been meant to take place in late 2016, and many Congolese were worried that Kabila, in power since 2001, was seeking a way to stay in office. Barred from serving three consecutive terms, Kabila already has hinted he might run again in 2023.<doc-sep>
Election results in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have been postponed again and officials said they did not know when they would be ready. The country’s electoral commission (Ceni) said on Sunday that tally sheets were trickling in slowly and so it would not be possible to release the results as scheduled. Corneille Nangaa, the head of Ceni, said: “We ask the nation to remain patient for the time it will take to consolidate all our data.” Opposition members and observers had said that releasing the results late could be part of a scheme by the Congolese government to rig the election. Although President Joseph Kabila could not stand again, having already served his constitutionally mandated two terms and been in power since 2001, his handpicked successor, Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, is widely seen as a puppet, there to hold the reins until 2023 when Kabila may run again. On Friday, Donald Trump said 80 US military personnel had been deployed to Gabon “in response to the possibility that violent demonstrations may occur in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in reaction to the 30 December 2018 elections there”. In a letter to congressional leaders the US president said the personnel were there to protect US citizens and the embassy, but also “in furtherance of United States national security and foreign policy interests”, adding that they would be there until the DRC’s security situation looked stable enough that they were not needed – and that more could be deployed if necessary. On Thursday the US threatened sanctions against those who tried to undermine democracy or threatened peace and stability. The Catholic church, a powerful body in the DRC, warned on Saturday of a possible uprising if Ceni did not release provisional results that “conformed to the truth of the polls”. The church had previously claimed that there was a clear winner of the election and called on Ceni to release the “true” results, signalling – though not saying outright – that Shadary had lost. Polling just before the election indicated that the opposition candidate Martin Fayulu was in the lead by a wide margin. A government spokesman, Lambert Mende, said the church could go to the courts if it was not satisfied with the results released by the electoral commission. “We’re not in the Vatican here, we’re in the Congo, and there’s a law that determines how things are done,” he said. On Friday, Kabila met the church’s secretary general, Donatien Nshole, and a delegation of priests. According to Nshole, Kabila said he wanted to “leave the country united and peaceful”. A host of irregularities and the suppression of voting rights were detailed in a Human Rights Watch report published on Saturday. The group pointed out that many polling stations across Kinshasa had abruptly closed, preventing people from voting, while others had opened late, and voters had had trouble using new electronic machines, thousands of which were burned shortly before the election in an alleged arson attack. The government has not denied that it has effected an internet shutdown. Observers were also blocked from many polling stations and armed men coerced people in North Kivu province to vote for Shadary, HRW said. Ida Sawyer, the deputy director of HRW’s Africa division, called on South Africa to exert serious diplomatic pressure on the DRC leadership “to ensure real election results are published”. The African Union and Southern African Development Community are on the ground but have yet to make strong statements; the latter called the election “well managed and smooth”. The eastern cities of Beni and Butembo were not allowed to vote in the election – their “poll” will take place in March, after the announcement of the winner, thus disenfranchising more than a million voters. At least 43 people were arrested in demonstrations in Beni in the past week, according to the UN radio station Radio Okapi. According to African Confidential, among the thousands of troops newly deployed to Kinshasa’s streets are many former members of the Rwanda-backed M23, a rebel group accused of committing many war crimes including rape, execution and recruiting child soldiers. Rwanda’s Paul Kagame is said to support Kabila’s choice of Shadary because he believes it the best way to control the conflict on the countries’ shared border.