2023-12-28 08:00:00
Face to face between police and opponents in front of the headquarters of presidential candidate Martin Fayulu, Wednesday December 27 in Kinshasa. SAMY NTUMBA SHAMBUYI / AP
The “big demonstration” called upon by five candidates for the December 20 presidential election to denounce what they describe as a “electoral coup d’état for the benefit of the outgoing presidential candidate of the republic [Félix Tshisekedi] » came to an end on Wednesday, December 27, on Boulevard Triomphal in Kinshasa. This call presented as “the first step in a phase of testing our capacities for mobilization and repression of power”according to Prince Epenge, spokesperson for the opponent Martin Fayulu, allows us to draw some lessons including that it cannot be qualified as a success.
The call for the demonstration was launched by Martin Fayulu, who always considered that his victory in the 2018 presidential election had been stolen from him by Félix Tshisekedi following an arrangement with his predecessor Joseph Kabila. This year, Martin Fayulu joined the ranks again. Without, however, presenting any candidate from his party in the legislative elections, thus depriving himself of the local relays essential to leading a complicated electoral campaign in such a large country. Today he rejects “the electoral masquerade” 2023, requires its cancellation and the setting of another date.
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On Wednesday, the crowd was not there to support his approach in front of the national headquarters of his Commitment for Citizenship and Development (Ecidé) party. At 10 a.m., at the time planned to set out in the direction of the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI), accused of being the instrument of power, there were barely more than a hundred activists – faced with as many of police officers. Gathered together on the ground in front of Ecidé HQ, some very young, they danced, provoked, harangued the public security cordon blocking access to the boulevard.
Moderate use of force
Then, like a flock of sparrows flying away at the slightest sharp click, everyone ran for refuge behind the metal doors of Martin Fayulu’s HQ. What followed was an astonishing stone-throwing exercise. On one side, a little higher up, entrenched militants, coming towards the long balcony, aiming a few dozen meters away from them at the police officers placed below. Who aimed the same kind of projectiles at them. All under the gaze of drivers of cars, trucks and motorcycles circulating as if nothing had happened on Boulevard Triomphal, as in the rest of the city. After half an hour of mineral exchanges punctuated by a few shots of stun grenades and a handful of tear gas by the police, the tension subsided. And with it every idea of demonstrating. The police officers, for once, must have been ordered to use moderate force. This was the case.
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