The former Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Augustin Matata Ponyo, has withdrawn from next month’s presidential election.<\/p>\n
He said he would now be backing Mo\u00efse Katumbi, a millionaire businessman and former governor of the Katanga region.<\/p>\n
Representatives of DR Congo’s main opposition parties held talks earlier this week on how to ensure the election would be fair, and to investigate the possibility of a joint candidate to challenge President Felix Tshisekedi.<\/p>\n
Mr Ponyo says he believes other opposition candidates will follow in his footsteps to withdraw in support of Mr Katumbi.<\/p>\n
Both served during the time of former President Joseph Kabila – Mr Ponyo as PM for more than four years and Mr Katumbi as governor of the copper-rich Katanga province for nine years.<\/p>\n
Mr Tshisekedi, who’s seeking a second term, was among several candidates who officially launched their campaigns on Sunday.<\/p>\n
The run-up to the 20 December vote has been tense.<\/p>\n
Human rights groups have been accusing the authorities of cracking down on dissent and freedom of expression – charges the government denies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The former Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Augustin Matata Ponyo, has withdrawn from next month’s presidential election. He said he would now be backing Mo\u00efse Katumbi, a millionaire businessman and former governor of the Katanga region. Representatives of DR Congo’s main opposition parties held talks earlier this week on how to ensure […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9949,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":3,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"BBC","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"1","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"0","show_view_counter":"0","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"0","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"0","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"0","show_popup_post":"0","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":"","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":"","hide":""},"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,33],"tags":[1750,72,1555],"class_list":["post-9948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-central-africa","category-politics","tag-augustin-matata-ponyo","tag-democratic-republic-of-congo","tag-moise-katumbi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9948"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9948\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}