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KINSHASA (AFP) – Tens of thousands of supporters welcomed Congolese opposition activist Felix Tshisekedi on his return to Kinshasa on Tuesday to launch his campaign to replace President Joseph Kabila in the upcoming elections.
"We will go with the people and we will win," said Tshisekedi, the son of the late Etienne Tshisekedi, 55, who for decades has been the face of opposition from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
"We will take 60% of the vote," he said.
He also promised to deploy observers to fight electoral fraud, while his teammate Vital Kamerhe, a former parliamentary speaker who had returned home, said the pair had made a "winning ticket".
When they flew to Addis Ababa at Kinshasa airport, a crowd of sympathizers from the Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS) of Tshisekedi and the Union for the Congolese Nation (UNC) Kamerhe were on hand to greet them.
Police briefly fired tear gas to try to spread the crowds and let their convoy pass, an AFP journalist said.
According to an agreement unveiled last Friday in Kenya, the duo will run on a common ticket which, if successful, will see Tshisekedi become president and Kamerhe appointed prime minister.
Kamerhe, who ran against Kabila in 2011, will be the director of the Tshisekedi campaign before the December 23 vote.
The decision to qualify for a common ticket came just days after the two men withdrew their support for an agreement reached in Geneva in which seven opposition parties united around a common candidate to increase opposition's chances of victory.
This candidate, MP Martin Fayulu, misunderstood, will now fight against Tshisekedi, as well as the former Minister of the Interior, Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, successor chosen by Kabila.
"We are not going to ask the Congolese people to boycott the vote," Tshisekedi said.
"That would leave the road open" to Kabila's candidate, Shadary, he said. "We will deploy observers everywhere to avoid cheating."
Tshisekedi's main areas of support lie in the west, around Kinshasa and in central Kasai, while Kamerhe has called for support from the east of the country affected by the conflict.
Addressing AFP last year, Tshisekedi, who does not have the same degree of popularity as his father, said that if he won the presidency, he would create a "truth and reconciliation commission" to hold Kabila to account.
It is committed to restoring the rule of law, fighting the "gangrene" of corruption and restoring peace in the east of this vast, conflict-torn country in Central Africa.
Fayulu is backed by opposition heavyweights Jean-Pierre Bemba and Moise Katumbi, both of whom are banned from running.
Bemba, a former warlord and deputy chairman of Kabila from 2003 to 2006, was convicted of war crimes by the International Criminal Court (ICC) after two years in prison.
Formerly presented as an opposition candidate by consensus, the great businessman Katumbi, who lives in exile in Belgium, has been accused of causing mercenaries to overthrow Kabila and to be sentenced in absentia for real estate fraud .
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