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congo supreme court declares kabila president Another step forward


KINSHASA - Democratic Republic of Congo's Supreme Court declared Joseph Kabila president today, confirming his victory in an October 29 run-off vote.

The tribunal rejected a challenge filed by former rebel chief Jean-Pierre Bemba against results showing incumbent President Kabila had won last month's presidential election.

"The Supreme Court of Justice receives the request of the MLC (Bemba's party), but declares it unfounded," Supreme Court President Kalonde Kele said in a statement greeted by cheers in the court room.

The ruling had been anxiously awaited in Kinshasa, where Bemba supporters rioted last week outside the Supreme Court to protest against results from electoral authorities who had provisionally declared Kabila the winner.

The run-off was the culmination of Democratic Republic of Congo's first free polls in more than 40 decades, aimed at ending years of war, dictatorship and chaos in the vast former Belgian colony in central Africa.

Lawyers for Bemba boycotted the court hearing after the tribunal rejected their request to reopen the debate over the election result. Bemba's camp had alleged "systematic cheating" in the vote counting.

"This is a decision that will be taken without a real debate, so there is no point in our being there," Bemba spokesman Moise Musangana told Reuters before the announcement.

Last week's riot followed gun battles in the streets of the capital earlier this month and in August between Kabila's and Bemba's soldiers. The Supreme Court building was set on fire and damaged during the riot.

Security had been tightened in the sprawling riverside city by UN and European Union peacekeepers who form the world's biggest international peacekeeping force deployed in Congo.

The peacekeepers have been protecting a peace process which ended a 1998-2003 war. The humanitarian crisis created by the conflict has already killed some 4 million people through violence, hunger and disease.

- REUTERS