Moise Katumbi, one of the main opposition candidates in Democratic Republic of Congo’s presidential election has added his voice to calls for the December 20 vote to be annulled because of “massive fraud,” a statement from his campaign said on Saturday.
Katumbi’s campaign added in the statement that the head of Congo’s national election commission should resign because the commission had participated in a planned “electoral fraud.”
“In this face of this unacceptable situation, we are calling for the immediate annulment of this chaotic election tainted by massive fraud,” the statement said.
Katumbi’s statement came as another group of opposition candidates who had called for a rerun of the election on Wednesday, wrote to the governor of the capital Kinshasa to say they will hold a joint protest next week over the election.
Katumbi is not among those who called for the protest, but his team told Reuters earlier on Saturday they support any constitutional initiative aimed at resisting another electoral robbery in Congo.
Election disputes often fuel unrest in Democratic Republic of Congo and risk further destabilising a country with globally important reserves of cobalt and copper, and which is battling widespread poverty and an eastern security crisis.
In a sign of growing concern over the aftermath of the election, 13 embassies in Kinshasa, including those of Germany and France, released a joint statement on Saturday calling for restraint.
