DR Congo candidate Fayulu denounces 'electoral coup'

What you need to know:

  • Opposition's Felix Tshisekedi declared winner of DRC presidential poll.
  • Tshisekedi, 55, hopes the elections will hand him the presidential prize that eluded his late father Etienne, who founded the DRC's mainstream opposition party, the Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS), in 1982.
  • Known to his friends as "Fatshi," he gained a Belgian diploma in marketing and communication and rose doggedly through the party ranks.
  • But he has never held high office or had management experience and is hobbled by the lack of his father's charisma.

The runner-up in the Democratic Republic of Congo's long-awaited presidential poll Martin Fayulu on Thursday denounced the results as an "electoral coup".

His fellow opposition candidate Felix Tshisekedi was declared the winner of the December vote by the electoral commission early Thursday morning.

"These results have nothing to do with the truth at the ballot box," Fayulu told Radio France International.

"It's a real electoral coup, it's incomprehensible."