DR Congo's re-elected President Kabila sworn in

The re-elected president of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo), Joseph Kabila, took the oath of office on Tuesday in the capital Kinshasa amid controversy over the final results of the Nov. 28 elections. The results confirmed on Friday by the Supreme Court showed that Kabila won the elections with 48.95 percent against his closest challenger Etienne Tshisekedi of the Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS), who got 32.33 percent of the votes cast. Tshisekedi strongly rejected the official results published by the Supreme Court. The 79 year old politician has so far declared himself as the president of the republic and on Sunday, he issued an arrest warrant against Kabila. He has also declared that he will be sworn in on Friday at the Martyrs stadium in Kinshasa. Currently, seven African countries including South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Burundi and the Central African Republic have recognized DR Congo's presidential election results. The South African Foreign Ministry said the Congolese elections were conducted in accordance with the country's electoral law, the principles of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) and those of the African Union (AU), while the U.S. government criticized the polls, saying the elections were flawed. The spokesperson for the U. S. State Department, Victoria Nuland, said the Congolese elections lacked transparency and did not reflect "the democratic gains" that had been observed in recent elections in other African countries.