However, Bemba said he still felt “a great deception and frustration by the manner in which the Supreme Court has dealt with the contested election.”
The court rejected Bemba’s protests that the vote was riddled with fraud. Bemba, who challenged incumbent President Kabila for the top spot, is one of three vice presidents who have served with Kabila as part of a peace agreement that helped bring closure to six years of civil war that ravaged the country.
Kabila won the election with 52 percent of the vote to Bemba’s 48 percent. Observers feared that despite the pledge of the two leaders not to engage in violence if they lost the election, the promises would quickly be broken.
The country was split largely across geographic lines in support of the candidates. Bemba received overwhelming support in the northwestern region where the Evangelical Covenant Church has conducted missionary work.
Following is a translated version of Bemba’s remarks:
Congolese people, my dear fellow citizens:
I have followed the decree of the Supreme Court of Justice, which proclaimed the final results of the run-off presidential election. I feel, as many of you do, a great deception and frustration by the manner in which the Supreme Court has dealt with the contested election. This procedure was neither equitable nor just and did not restore the openness and truth.
Our unhappiness for this election continues and we are seriously considering contesting the verdict. However, in the supreme interest of the Nation and in the care to preserve the peace and spare the country from sinking into chaos and violence, I take today before God, the Nation, and history, the engagement and the responsibility of leading from here on out, in permanent conversation with all of you, this struggle for change by means of an opposition party, strong and republican.
I call on all forces, political and social, given to the ideals of a democratic change in our country, to unite in this struggle to the goal that, together, reorganized, we can assure the renewed founding of Congo. I thank the Congolese people for the confidence they have witnessed in voting in great numbers for the political project, which I have put before them. This project, I recall to you, consists of defending the legitimate rights of the Congolese people and of giving them once again their dignity and their place among the nations.
My thanks are addressed equally to the soldiers of the Liberation Army, to the allies of RENACO (Bemba’s political party) and the Union for the Nation (a coalition of about 50 political parties who supported Bemba) for their efforts towards moving forward our project for the Congo. I would like to reassure them of our continuing efforts towards a new Congo. Let us remain united, mobilized, vigilant and determined for the surpassing interest of our nation.
I will announce in the coming days the form and process by which we will conduct this political opposition. May God bless the Democratic Republic of Congo! United, with God, we will conquer! I thank you.
Jean-Pierre Bemba
