It’s a toss up: Kabila’s all-out cling to power
DRC president plans to stay for third term, critics fear
JOSEPH Kabila, the Democratic Republic of Congo’s president, typically avoids public speaking. But on Tuesday, he addressed both the National Assembly and Senate in a hastily arranged speech which was broadcast to the nation.
Cheered on by devotees, Kabila recalled the state of the country he inherited from his father in 2001 — divided, indebted, at war. He then turned to the fruits of his stewardship, defined as peace, democracy and economic growth.
Such were the self-congratulatory foundations on which the president built the message he’d come to deliver. It was aimed at those of his opponents who still refuse to accept that Kabila won’t step down on December 19, the last day of his second, and under the constitution, final term. Unambiguously in Kabila’s crosshairs was the Rassemblement, a large opposition coalition led by Etienne Tshisekedi, an 83-year-old veteran who’s been nuisancing Congolese presidents for more than three decades.
The election to select Kabila’s successor, which was supposed to take place this month, has been delayed and the Constitutional Court has ruled that the president can stay in office until polls can be held. In October, a group of opposition parties endorsed Kabila’s extended second mandate when it signed a deal with the president’s political alliance.
Under the terms of the agreement, Kabila continues as head of state until the next election, which has been scheduled for April 2018, and the opposition faction will join a government of national unity, which is in the process of being appointed.
The Rassemblement, however, has rejected the pact and insists the president must relinquish power next month.
Unamused, Kabila used his speech to warn he “cannot allow the republic to be taken hostage by a fringe of the political class” and urged those who boycotted the deal to sign up.
For Kabila’s adversaries, December 19 has become totemic, but more important than the date itself is the pervasive suspicion that the president plans to use the additional time he’s been afforded — a minimum of 18 months — to attempt to modify the constitution and stand for a third term.
During his speech Kabila said the constitution will be respected and Bernabé Kikaya Bin Karubi, his chief diplomatic adviser, claims the opposition’s professed anxiety is unmerited. “The constitution doesn’t allow somebody to have three consecutive mandates . . . that means that, come the next election, Joseph Kabila will not be a candidate,” says Kikaya. He claims the Rassemblement “are acting in bad faith”.
Nevertheless, many remain unconvinced. Some point out that the president’s supporters have unsuccessfully tried to alter the constitution in the past.
“The fact that Kabila has attempted to change the constitution several times before means his claim that he’ll respect it is not really credible,” says Pascal Kambale, a prominent Congolese human rights lawyer.
Others think that Kabila has in fact already transgressed the rules he claims to uphold.
“The president speaks of respecting the constitution,” says Valentin Mubake, Tshisekedi’s political adviser, “but he has already violated it.” As evidence, Mubake raises Kabila’s failure to convoke the presidential election in September and plan to cling on into next year.
What will actually happen on December 19 remains the great unknown.
Delly Sessanga, a leading figure in the Rassemblement, hopes that a negotiated settlement can be found and places some hope in an initiative recently launched by the Catholic Church at the president’s instigation to find points of convergence between Kabila’s political allies and enemies.
Kabila’s side needs to give more, Sessanga says. “We won’t find the peaceful solution alone,” he claims. “An agreement requires that Kabila involves himself in the process.” It is likely that at least some of the Rassemblement would acquiesce to a Kabila-led transition as long as they received sufficient undertakings that the president won’t contest the next election.
Mubake, a Rassemblement colleague of Sessanga, is less sanguine. He also hopes Kabila will come to the table because “the Rassemblement wants to behave as a responsible political actor and avoid chaos”. Yet, “if Mr Kabila is headless and doesn’t quit power on December 19”, he says, “the Rassemblement will ask the population to apply article 64 of the constitution.” This disposition obliges all Congolese to oppose anyone who exercises power in violation of the constitution. “The people will be in their rights to ensure Kabila fails; the Rassemblement will encourage this.”
Despite Mubake’s uncompromising words, the population was recently reminded of the risks involved in dissent. On September 19, the Rassemblement held a demonstration in Kinshasa to protest the delayed elections — 36 hours later, more than 50 people were dead, according to the UN, nearly all of whom were killed by the security forces. “The Congolese demonstrated then that they don’t want to see Kabila any longer at the head of state,” Mubake states.
It may transpire that Kabila’s most dangerous enemy is not the established political parties of the Rassemblement, but the DRC’s rapidly deteriorating economy. A treasury heavily reliant on revenues from mining companies in the Katanga region, more than 1 500km from Kinshasa, has been starved by subdued copper prices. Unlike the rewards of the boom years, the slump effects have trickled down to ordinary Congolese.
Copper production has fallen as a result of the metal’s low price, which has dramatically reduced the DRC’s foreign exchange earnings.
“This has put pressure on the Congolese franc, the channel through which ordinary Congolese feel the impact of low commodity prices most severely,” explains Bjorn Dahlin van Wees, an Africa analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit. Since the end of 2015, Van Wees says, the franc has weakened by
The president’s supporters have unsuccessfully tried to alter the constitution in the past The population will clap their hands because Joseph Kabila must leave power
more than 20% against the dollar and inflation has risen in yearon-year terms from just above 1% in early 2016 to nearly 9%.
In Kinshasa, frustration with the trajectory of the economy and anger directed at the government are easily detectable.
“For the moment Congo has packed up because our country doesn’t work,” says Sellou Goulay, a phone credit vendor. “People suffer without work and each day the franc moves.” He predicts that “on December 19 the population will clap their hands because Joseph Kabila must leave power”.
Unfortunately for Goulay, short of a seismic shift, he won’t be welcoming a new president this year.
Nonetheless, Kabila would be well advised to pay closer attention to the swelling exasperation of millions of people rather than playing games with the Rassemblement.