Felix Tshisekedi, the president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is scheduled to take office on Saturday for a second five-year term following a landslide of elections that the opposition has denounced as fraudulent and called for protests.
The ceremony will take place at Kinshasa’s 80,000-seat Martyrs sports stadium, which is the preferred venue for the 60-year-old president known as “Fatshi,” despite simmering tensions in the nation’s unstable eastern provinces.
According to authorities, eighteen additional heads of state will attend.
His first swearing-in, in January 2019, after controversially defeating Joseph Kabila, took place in the gardens of the Palace of Nations, a solemn location that has always hosted important governmental occasions.
Tshisekedi is the son of the late historical opposition politician Etienne Tshisekedi.
He was elected president on the promise of improving living conditions in the DRC, which has natural resources but a primarily destitute population of 100 million people, and putting an end to the east’s 25-year civil war.
Over 40 million people were registered to vote on December 20 for a president, as well as national and regional lawmakers and municipal councilors.
Polling was officially extended by a day to account for multiple logistical snarls and continued for days afterwards in remote areas.
In the end, Tshisekedi officially triumphed with 73.47 percent of the vote.
Moise Katumbi, a former governor of the central region of Katanga, came a distant second with 18.08 percent.
Martin Fayulu, who says he was also robbed at the last presidential vote, garnered five percent.
Nobel peace prize winner Denis Mukwege, who won the Nobel peace prize winner for his work with rape victims, scored 0.22 percent.
These candidates called for the election results to be cancelled. A protest planned for December 27 was banned and snuffed out by the police.
Since mid-December troops from the 10-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC) have been discreetly arriving in the DR Congo.
They are taking over from an East African peacekeeping force whose mandate was ended by the DR Congo government, who alleged it colluded with the rebels instead of fighting them.
