Congo president blocks senators over ‘corruption’

Bloomberg

Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi blocked senators from taking their seats after an election at the weekend marred by allegations of
corruption.
The decision further delays Tshisekedi’s formation of a new government, almost three months after he won a disputed election to lead the world’s biggest cobalt producer. It comes less than two weeks after he and ex-President Joseph Kabila, whose allies won the most seats in parliament’s upper chamber, agreed to govern the central African nation in a coalition.
The president “has suspended the installation of
senators,” interim Interior Minister Basile Olongo told
reporters in the capital, Kinshasa, after a meeting attended by ministers and the head of the electoral commission. Kabila’s Common Front for Congo, known as the FCC, won more than two-thirds of the 100 available Senate seats in the March 15 ballot. Tshisekedi’s party and his allies got three.
The senatorial poll took place amid accusations of vote-selling by members of Congo’s provincial parliaments, who elect the upper chamber in a secret ballot. Supporters of Tshisekedi’s Union for Democracy and
ocial Progress, or UDPS, protested the results in several cities at the weekend,
vandalising some offices of
Kabila’s party.