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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   1051 thread views

Transnational Thursday for December 28, 2023

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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Democratic Republic of Congo

An update to last week’s coverage of the election. The election has technically not been called yet but incumbent President Félix Tshisekedi reportedly has an implausible 80%+ of the vote, so the results are pretty much determined.

He was followed by businessman and former governor of Katanga (southeast) Moïse Katumbi (15.18%) and the other opponent Martin Fayulu (1.2%). The twenty or so other candidates in the running, including Nobel Peace Prize winner Denis Mukwege, failed to reach 1%.

Tshisekedi winning a fair election is actually plausible, but probably not dominating like this - the economy is poor and the security situation in the east with the Rwandan-backed M23 rebels has been extremely rough throughout his term. Five of the opposition candidates are leading a protest marching on the capital of Kinshasa. The government rejected their plans and banned the protest, so hopefully things stay peaceful and don’t deteriorate into significant police brutality. I’ve mentioned it before but Tshisekedi’s first victory was the first peaceful, democratic transfer of power in Congolese history so a lot is (was?) riding on this election.

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