First Past the Post: Would it have Mattered?

Kabila infamously rammed through a change in the Congolese Constitution this past January so that the election would be decided on a first-past-the-post basis. Would it have mattered if he'd left the Constitution as it was, so that he would have had to compete in a run-off against Tshisekedi next month?

It doesn't look like it. Based on my projections after the third round of votes released, Kabila won 47 percent of the vote against a crowded field, to 34 percent for Tshisekedi. To win a run-off, Tshisekedi would have had to secure the support of nearly all the other candidates. To put it differently, he would have needed to win nearly 85 percent of the votes that went to the other nine presidential candidates.

Candidate	Percent
Kabila	47
Tshisekedi	34
Kamerhe	8
Kengo	5
Mobutu	2
Mbusa	2