The election commission of the Democratic Republic of Congo has excluded opposition leader Jean-Pierre Bemba and three former prime ministers from the list of approved candidates for December’s presidential election, which was published on Friday.
Bemba, a former warlord who earlier in August returned to the Congolese capital Kinshasa to submit his candidacy for president after a decade in prison in The Hague for war crimes, had been seen as one of the frontrunners in the race to succeed incumbent Joseph Kabila.
The commission said a separate International Criminal Court conviction for witness tampering was the reason for Bemba’s exclusion from the list.
Bemba was acquitted on appeal at the International Criminal Court of war crimes and crimes against humanity for murder, rape and pillage committed by fighters he sent to the Central African Republic in 2002 but his witness tampering conviction stands.
Opposition parties condemned the election commission’s decision,…
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