Tshisekedi, Félix Antoine

Tshisekedi, Félix Antoine, 1963–, political leader in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, son of longtime opposition leader Étienne Tshisekedi. Elected to the Congolese parliament in 2011, he refused to take his seat because he did not recognize his father's loss that year to President Joseph Kabila. When his father died in 2017, he became head of the Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS), which had been founded by his father in 1982. Having agreed to support a unity opposition candidate in the 2018 presidential election, he ran anyway when opposition parties chose Martin Fayulu. After the election, he was declared the winner, but Fayulu, the runner-up, had claimed victory and had his claim supported by the Catholic church. The relatively inexperienced Tshisekedi nonetheless succeeded Kabila as president in 2019.

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