By Agencies

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Joseph Kabila, the incumbent president of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has been declared the provisional winner of the country's presidential poll, the DRC election commission has announced.

The provisional results were announced on Friday, after several days of unplanned delays.
 
Kabila won 48.97 per cent of the 18.14 million ballots cast, with veteran opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi winning 32.3 per cent, election commission chief Daniel Ngoy Mulunda announced. Voter turnout was 58.8 per cent, he said.
 
In a statement sent to the AFP news agency, Tshisekedi rejected the election result and proclaimed himself the rightful president of the country.
 
"I consider this [result] declaration a outright provocation to our people and I reject it in full. As a result, I consider myself from this day on as the elected president of the Democratic Republic of Congo," the statement read.
 
He called on the international community to "find a solution to this problem [and to] take all possible measures so that the blood of the Congolese people is not spilled again".
 
To his supporters, whom he calls "fighters", he said: "I urge you to stick together as one man behind me to face the events that will follow."
 
The results are line with preliminary results that had been released by the commission on Friday, which had indicated that Kabila held an unassailable lead, reported Al Jazeera's Yvonne Ndege from Kinshasa, the country's capital.
 
The opposition had earlier rejected those partial results, and threatened "serious unrest" across the country if President Kabila was declared the winner, Ndege reported.
 
A spokesman for Tshisekedi told the Reuters news agency that the result was "totally unacceptable".
 
"You can just look around Kinshasa or the rest of the country to see how many people are against these results. The population is totally disoriented," Alexis Mutanda told Reuters, minutes after the election commission issued the results.
 
Kikaya bin Karubi, the Kabila government's ambassador to Britain and a senior party member, said that he was "overjoyed" with the win.
 
"We have proven to the world that we can finance and organise elections," he said. "We are very happy and we are ready to continue the work rebuilding the country."
 
In the tightly controlled pro-Kabila downtown neighborhood in Kinshasa, near the election commission, people hung out of balconies cheering after the results were released.
 
Police in riot gear in trucks stood at attention.
 
In the Limite neighbourhood of the capital, where the 78-year-old Tshisekedi lives, the mood was dark.
 
"This is a total disaster," said Fabien Bukasa, a Tshisekedi supporter. "We are thinking about what to do. We do not know what will happen."
 
Repeated delays
 
The commission has said the delay was due to double-checking of figures against tally sheets from polling stations to avoid mistakes.
 
Kinshasa remained quiet but tense on Friday morning. Roads were relatively empty with most people still at home or in their townships.
 
President Kabila, in power since 2001, will now serve out another five-year term if the results are ratified by the country's apex court. He was expected to hold on to his position, having run against a divided opposition field of 10 candidates in the single-round race.
 
Fraud allegations
 
Although international observers said the November 28 vote was flawed, they have stopped short of calling it fraudulent.

Most say the irregularities were not widespread enough to have caused a change in outcome.

However, the perception among opposition supporters is that Tshisekedi won.
 
The conflict-prone country has been on edge since the polls which were preceded by deadly clashes between police and opposition supporters in Kinshasa.
 
Police have been out in force in the capital and about 20,000 soldiers are on stand-by at military bases with security forces seemingly determined to quash any opposition demonstrations before they could start.
 
Soldiers from Kabila's presidential guard were posted at intersections leading to his residence in the Gombe neighbourhood on Friday.
 
'Legal route'
 
Nshole Babula, the secretary-general of Union of Bishops of Congo, said he was worried about the prospect of violence: "We are worried about what might happen when results are released because the opposition says they will protest and we are concerned to see so much of police presence in the city.
 
"This is why the Catholic church has asked those who have a problem with the results to address their complaints through the legal route."
 
Speaking about allegations of fraud, Babula said: "It is difficult to say there is fraud, but we say that CENI [the election commission] must be transparent … the manner in which they are publishing results, it is not possible to verify results."
 
Tshisekedi's Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS) has said it would "tolerate" the result delay, but reiterated its criticism of the vote count and called for results to be released for every polling centre.
 
UDPS secretary general Jacquemin Shabani called the issuing of partial results "biased, opaque and irresponsible".
 
Other opposition figures have also reacted sceptically to the repeated delays.
 
"If it's designed to serve the credibility of the results, it's a good thing. If it's designed to hide something, that's going to be a problem," an aide to Francois Nicephore Kakese, one of the 10 opposition candidates, told the AFP news agency.
 
The country's Supreme Court will hear election disputes and declare a definitive winner on December 17. Judges at the country's apex court are, however, seen as being close to Kabila. The president expanded the court's bench from seven to 27 at the start of the campaign.
 
Provisional parliamentary results are due in mid-January.
 
The US-based Human Rights Watch has said at least 18 civilians were killed in election-related violence last month, mostly shot dead by Kabila's presidential guard as it put down a Tshisekedi rally in Kinshasa.
 
The International Crisis Group, which has put the country on its "conflict risk alert" list, called on Thursday for a post-election mediation process to be put into place, involving the United Nations, the European Union and the African Union.
 
"It is impossible for us to go about our normal lives," said Clementine Luembe, a 40-year old woman who hawks goods on the street in Kinshasa. "We are all worried about the results."