Opposition leader Felix Tshisekedi was inaugurated as the fifth president of the Democratic Republic of Congo on Thursday in front of thousands of citizens who squeezed into the grounds of the presidential palace.
Doubts remain over the legitimacy of Mr Tshiskedi’s victory in the poll last month but his inauguration marked a moment of acceptance for some Congolese people and most foreign governments, which have chosen to look past evidence of fraud and welcome the first peaceful transfer of power since Congo’s independence.
In a 30-minute address under the tropical midday sun, Mr Tshisekedi called for unity and thanked all the political leaders who had aided the development of democracy in the former Belgian colony since 1960, including presidential runner-up Martin Fayulu who has challenged the result.
“The Congo that we are forming, will not be a Congo of division, or hate or tribalism,” said Mr Tshisekedi. “We want to form a strong Congo . . . a Congo for all in which everyone has a place.”
The vast central African country has never before seen one president hand power to another and as Mr Tshisekedi received the blue, red and yellow Congolese flag from the outgoing president Joseph Kabila, the crowd erupted with cheers.
“This is a transition without a single shot fired,” said Auguy Kondo, the 37-year old leader of group of youthful Tshisekedi faithful, who were inside the presidential grounds for the first time. “That is something incredible to celebrate.”
Many Tshisekedi supporters were dressed in brilliant white and said the colour symbolised how the new president, a life-long opposition member, had never killed or stolen to ascend to the presidency.
Despite December’s divisive election, the inauguration was an important moment for Congo and caps a rapid rise for Congo’s new president, the son of the veteran opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi, who was little known in Congo even a few years ago.
He inherited Congo’s largest opposition party, the Union for Democracy and Social Progress, in 2017 after his father died and in November abandoned a coalition of opposition parties to present his own candidacy for the presidential vote.
As recently as last week his ascension to head of state was uncertain after other African leaders expressed serious doubts over the validity of the election results and called on the country’s constitutional court not to validate his victory.
Congo ignored the instruction, leaving foreign governments with the choice of breaking diplomatic ties or accepting the outcome. “Everyone chose peace over truth,” said one western diplomat based in Kinshasa.
Few foreign governments sent their heads of state to the ceremony but many sent representatives. Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta was the only foreign sitting president in attendance.
Even the US came around despite threatening last week to hold to account Congolese officials who undermine democracy. On Wednesday, the Trump administration welcomed Mr Tshisekedi’s victory and encouraged Congolese political leaders to work together.
Mr Fayulu, who says he was the real winner of December’s election, rejected foreign calls to back a unity government as a corruption of the democratic process.
“I have no need for a government post, I will not betray the Congolese people that voted for me,” Mr Fayulu told the Financial Times in an interview in Kinshasa.
Mr Fayulu has reason to be aggrieved. An FT analysis of two sets of voting data, including results gathered by the biggest observation mission run by the Catholic church, show that Mr Fayulu won the election by a huge margin, with as much as 59.4 per cent of the vote.
The disputed outcome has created new divisions, setting the Congolese state against senior clerics from the respected Catholic church, who were absent from the ceremony.
“An invitation is not summons,” Fridolin Ambongo, the archbishop of Kinshasa, said on Wednesday, explaining that he would not attend the inauguration. “I fear strongly that the same system will continue with the new president,” said Mr Ambongo.
Under Mr Kabila’s leadership Congo became Africa’s biggest copper producer and the world’s largest source of cobalt but corruption and mismanagement has meant the benefits have rarely trickled down to most of Congo’s 80m people.
Since his victory was announced, Mr Tshisekedi and Mr Kabila have called for co-operation between the outgoing and incoming regimes.
Given allegations of a deal between the two leaders to block Mr Fayulu from power, as well as a contentious landslide victory for Mr Kabila’s coalition in parliamentary elections held on the same day, the calls for unity have left observers expecting many members of the outgoing administration to find roles in the new regime.
For Mr Tshiskedi’s supporters, however, his victory was deserved regardless of its manner because his party, the UDPS formed by his father in 1982, had fought for power for decades.
“We have suffered for 37 years to get here,” said Marie Ngalula, a UDPS member since 1992. “We have fought for it.”
