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Felix Tshisekedi, a member of the Congolese opposition, returned home in Kinshasa on Tuesday and was greeted by tens of thousands of supporters as he began his campaign to replace the longtime president and his enemy, Joseph Kabila, in the December elections.
"We will go with the people and we will win," said Tshisekedi, the son of the late Etienne Tshisekedi, 55, a face of DRC opposition for decades.
He promised to deploy teams of observers to fight against electoral fraud, while his teammate Vital Kamerhe, a former speaker of parliament, said on Twitter that the duo had made a "winning ticket".
Tens of thousands of supporters of the Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS), Tshisekedi's main opposition party, and the Union for the Congolese Nation (UNC) of Kamerhe were on the spot to welcome them upon their arrival at Kinshasa airport.
According to an agreement reached Friday in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, if Tshisekedi wins the presidency in the elections of December 23, he will make Kamerhe his prime minister.
Kamerhe, who ran against Kabila in 2011, will be Tshisekedi's campaign manager.
The two men withdrew from an agreement reached in Geneva earlier this month in which seven opposition parties were united around a common candidate in order to increase their chances of victory.
Their surprise choice, the little-known MP Martin Fayulu, will now fight against Tshisekedi as well as former Interior Minister Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, the successor chosen by Kabila.
Tshisekedi, who does not enjoy the same degree of popularity as his father, told AFP last year that if he won the presidency, he would create a "truth and reconciliation commission" tasked with to hold Kabila to account, while allowing him to remain a country.
He promised to restore the rule of law, to fight against the "gangrene" of corruption and to restore peace in the east of the vast country of Central Africa devastated by the conflict.
Fayulu enjoys support from opposition heavyweights Jean-Pierre Bemba and Moise Katumbi, both of whom are banned from running.
Bemba, former warlord and deputy chairman of Kabila from 2003 to 2006, was convicted of war crimes by the International Criminal Court after two years of imprisonment.
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 .
Shadary, a former minister of the Radical Interior, is one of 15 Congolese nationals facing punishment from the European Union, accused of violating human rights. man between December 2016 and the beginning of 2018.
In all, 21 candidates are enrolled in the race to replace Kabila, 47, who has ruled the country since the assassination of his father, President Laurent-Desire Kabila, in 2001.
Kabila's second and last elected term came to an end almost two years ago, but he remained in office thanks to a transition clause in the Constitution.
This unstable and poverty-stricken nation has never experienced a peaceful transition of power since Belgium's independence in 1960.
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