Due to the disputed results, on Saturday, the presidential runner-up Martin Fayulu filed a challenge to the election results in the DRC’s constitutional court, claiming that former president Joseph Kabila had manipulated the results in favour of the declared winner, opposition leader Felix Tshisekedi.
Fayulu’s decision to go to court to file his complaint was applauded by Sisulu at a press briefing on Sunday in Pretoria.
While she would not be drawn on allegations that the election results were fraudulent and calling questions from reporters on this as mere allegations, Sisulu said the DRC’s constitution allowed for such a legal challenge as done by Fayulu. As such, it should be welcomed, she said.
However, Sisulu was at pains to point out that South Africa did not want to prescribe to the DRC about what next steps it should take.
But if the DRC decided to take this route, South Africa had experience in this regard, having formed its own government of national unity at the end of apartheid, she said.
In its call to Kinshasa to form a national government of unity, SADC gave the examples of South Africa, Zimbabwe and Kenya which had stopped post-electoral violence due to this.