Kinshasa, Congo – The supreme court on Monday upheld President Joseph Kabila’s victory in Congo’s landmark elections, ruling as unfounded the runner-up’s charges of widespread fraud in balloting meant to usher the restive Central African nation toward long-term peace and stability.
Kabila won the landmark Oct. 29 runoff with 58 percent of votes, compared with about 42 percent for former rebel leader Jean-Pierre Bemba, according to the tally confirmed by the court. Bemba had challenged the results, saying the vote was invalidated by systematic cheating.
“The Supreme Court of Justice proclaims Joseph Kabila elected by absolute majority,” Chief Judge Benoit Lwamba said in remarks broadcast on Congolese television.
Judge Kalonda Teleoma said Bemba’s charges were “without foundation.”
The capital appeared calm immediately after the announcement, but the long election process has been marred by sporadic violence.
After the announcement, police patrolled near-empty avenues in much of the capital, Kinshasa, as residents stayed in their houses. In a few areas, people sang in the street in celebration, while others shouted support for Bemba.
With Monday’s decision, Kabila is set to become Congo’s first freely elected president since independence from Belgium in 1960.
The mineral-rich country has been hobbled by the 32-year dictatorship of Mobutu Sese Seko and a 1998-2002 war in which neighboring countries pillaged its resources.
Kabila generally has been credited with pushing through the peace plan that ended the war, though his administration has been charged with corruption and his army with serious human-rights abuses. About 17,500 U.N. peacekeepers are overseeing Congo’s postwar transition.
