Joseph Kabila as winner of the November 28 presidential election. The
Court in fact confirmed the figures of the provisional results
released earlier by the national electoral commission (CENI).
Vital Kamerhe was the sole presidential candidate to file a petition
Monday to the Supreme Court requesting that the elections be simply
voided.
The formal hearing on Kamerhe's petition at the Supreme Court was held
on Thursday and broadcast later on national TV. Kamerhe's 21-member
legal team was led by Maître Jean-Joseph Mukendi wa Mulumba, ertswhile
Tshisekedi's spokesman.
The proceedings failed to produce the smoking gun of vote rigging but
instead hinged on procedural legalese, especially a provision in
Article 73 of the Electoral Law mandating that a petition be notified
to "the candidate whose election is contested, to the political parti
or political group that presented a candidate as well as to the
national independent electoral commission." This, according to
Kamerhe's lawyers, meant that all the other presidential candidates
had to be present in Court. An interpretation the Supreme Court
rejected, arguing that the other candidates had not filed petitions!
Exercised by this ruling, Kamerhe and his lawyers walked out of the
Court. They then told the press that they only went to the Supreme
Court to demonstrate the "dysfunction" of the Congolese justice system
and the fact that the Supreme Court is a "vassal of the
powers-that-be."
On Friday, the Supreme Court found Kamerhe's petition groundless for
"lack of proof" and proclaimed Kabila president with the same numbers
given by the embattled electoral commission.
Friday's final ruling by the Supreme Court was met with general
indifference in the streets where the sense of the inevitability of
Kabila's re-election has finally sunk in. No one knows, however,
Tshisekedi's next political move. A list of the ghost cabinet of
Tshisekedi that has been circulating proved to be fake. But UDPS has
called for demos on December 20, when Kabila will be sworn in for his
new 5-year term in office.
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