Electoral standoff in DRCongo amid violence

The DR Congo navigates a tense electoral standoff after President Joseph Kabila was declared the winner of last week's polls and runner-up Etienne Tshisekedi rejected the results, sparking violent protests. On Friday gunshots rang out in Kinshasa's eastern neighbourhood of Limete, where rival Tshisekedi has his party headquarters. Third-placed candidate Vital Kamerhe also rejected the result and recognised Tshisekedi as president. There was also shooting in the central neighbourhood of Bandale, where protesters set tyres on fire and threw stones at a heavy contingent of armed police who fired tear gas to disperse them. And there also reports of looting and at least one person was shot and wounded near Bandale. While the unrest was limited to specific areas, calls poured in from the international community for restraint in the restive central African country. Tshisekedi himself called for calm late Friday. According to provisional results finally released Friday by the election commission after a marathon 11-day wait, Kabila, who has been in power since 2001, secured 49 percent of the vote. Tshisekedi, they said, had won just 32.3 percent. But Tshisekedi dismissed the figures and declared himself president, in comments to AFP. "I consider this (result) declaration an outright provocation to our people and I reject it in full," he said. "As a result, I consider myself from this day on as the elected president," he told AFP. "I call on the international community, which has relentlessly encouraged me to guarantee a peaceful process, to not only find a solution to this problem but take all possible measures so that the blood of the Congolese people is not spilled again." Later Friday, after the unrest broke out, he appealed to the people to "stay calm and peaceful". The result, if it stands, hands Kabila another five-year term after constitutional changes in January scrapped two-round elections for a single-round system. The supreme court has until December 17 to hear election disputes, review the provisional results and declare the definitive winner. Tshisekedi said he had no intention of going to the court, which Kabila expanded from seven to 27 judges at the start of the campaign. "The supreme court is Kabila's private institution," Tshisekedi said. He insisted that his party had collected its own results directly from polling stations: they showed him with 54 percent of the vote to 26 percent for Kabila, he said. Third-place candidate Kamerhe, a former speaker of the national assembly, said he "categorically" rejected the result. He considered Tshisekedi the winner, he said. The European Union, the United States, Britain, France and former colonial power Belgium all appealed for calm, urging the country's politicians and security forces to refrain from violence. Tshisekedi supporters, who had gathered in Brussels' African quarter Matonge Friday  afternoon, went on the rampage clashing with police in the evening, Belgian media reported. Police said several vehicles were torched and officers arrested two people suspected of having thrown petrol bombs. Police subsequently sealed off the district, closing the local metro station. Supporters of Tshisekedi have for the several days now defied the ban on demonstrations in Brussels, not just in the Matonge district but also near the various buildings housing the European institutions. On Tuesday alone, police arrested 262 people following scuffles with officers and acts of vandalism mainly targeting cars and local businesses. The election campaign was marred by bloodshed, which according to Human Rights Watch left at least 18 civilians dead, most of them shot by government forces. Opposition parties said repeated delays to the election commission's announcement of the results, originally due Tuesday, had raised suspicions it was trying to rig the count. Observers have also criticised the commission for a lack of transparency, though it sought to answer some of their concerns Friday by releasing full tallies for all 64,000 polling stations. Parliamentary polls were also held on November 28, the provisional results of which are expected in mid-January. Officials said 58.8 percent of the country's 32 million voters had cast ballots.