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Bemba threatens to call strikes
25/01/2007 08:29 - (SA)
Kinshasa - Defeated Congolese presidential contender Jean-Pierre Bemba warned President Joseph Kabila on Wednesday that abuses and corruption could undermine democracy and he threatened to call opposition strikes and protests.
It was the strongest public attack against the president made by former rebel leader Bemba since he accepted his defeat last year in the Democratic Republic of Congo's landmark elections.
Bemba, who had said after losing the poll that he would exercise peaceful opposition, slammed "buying of consciences" and corruption, which he said marred senatorial elections held last week, in which Kabila supporters won a clear majority.
Bemba said: "We will use, whenever necessary, all our influence and all means available to us under the constitution, notably protests, strikes and other legal paths of resistance and protest to show our disapproval. And, if the case arises, to block the deployment of a dictatorial regime behind a democratic facade.
"The twisting of the law, the corruption of those elected destroy hopes for the establishment of a peaceful democracy and carry the seeds of instability and the erosion of democratic gains."
During last year's historic election process, soldiers loyal to Kabila and Bemba fought several gunbattles in Kinshasa, raising fears that the country could slide back into conflict after the end of a devastating 1998-2003 war.
Last year's polls were the first free elections in the former Belgian colony in more than 40 decades and they were protected by the world's largest UN peacekeeping force as part of a strategy to try to end years of conflict and chaos.
- Reuters
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