2019 — Félix Tshisekedi Declared Congo's Winner

In the early hours of January 10, 2019, DR Congo's electoral commission declared opposition candidate Félix Tshisekedi the winner of the long-delayed presidential vote. The announcement, made while much of the country slept, closed a tense wait for a result many had feared would never come.

The result was fiercely contested. Rival Martin Fayulu called it an "electoral coup," and the Catholic Church's observers said their tallies pointed to a different winner. Yet if accepted, the declaration marked something Congo had never seen: its first democratic transfer of power since independence in 1960. A contested count still carried the weight of a historic threshold.