DR Congo's President Joseph Kabila to be sworn in

Tanks have been deployed in Kinshasa in case of opposition protests as Joseph Kabila prepares to be sworn in for a second term as Democratic Republic of Congo's president.

The Supreme Court has confirmed that Mr Kabila, 40, gained the most votes in the November election.

But observers have criticised the poll and opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi, 79, has declared himself president.

He says he will be sworn in on Friday.

Mr Tshisekedi, who enjoys strong support in the capital, Kinshasa, has called on civil servants and the security forces to take orders from him, rather than Mr Kabila.

As well as Kinshasa, he also enjoys a lot of support in the diamond-rich, central area of Kasai.

He said he was offering a reward for the capture of Mr Kabila.

An aide of Mr Kabila said the call was "criminal".

Reports say Mr Kabila's Republican Guard has deployed tanks across the city ahead of his swearing-in ceremony.

They are also positioned at Martyrs Stadium, where Mr Tshisekedi's supporters plan to inaugurate him as president on Friday.

Leaders expected

Following the criticism of the election, Mr Kabila's aides have confirmed the attendance of only a handful of African heads of state for his inauguration - Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, Gabon's Ali Bongo, Togo's Faure Gnassingbe and Congo-Brazzaville's Denis Sassou Nguesso.

Regional powerhouse South Africa is sending its foreign minister, Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, after describing the elections as "generally okay".

The foreign minister of former colonial power Belgium has cancelled plans to attend the ceremony.

Congolese affairs analyst Theodore Trefon says “that Western nations often follow Belgium's diplomatic lead over DR Congo”.

Mr Tshisekedi led the campaign for democracy under former leader Mobutu Sese Seko but these were the first elections he has contested.

He boycotted the last poll in 2006, organised under the auspices of the United Nations, after claiming they had been rigged in advance.

Mr Kabila has promised to use his second term to focus on "five building sites of the republic": Infrastructure; health and education; water and electricity; housing and employment.
DR Congo is two-thirds the size of Western Europe and is rich in minerals, such as gold and coltan used in mobile phones but it has hardly any roads or railways.

After years of mismanagement and conflict, living standards in the country were recently found to be the lowest of 187 countries surveyed by the UN.

The elections were the first Congolese-organised polls since the end of a devastating war in 2003 which left some four million people dead.

BBC/Waziri/Williams