Warlord Bemba’s return risks Congo election chaos
A FORMER Congolese warlord returned home yesterday to huge crowds and police firing tear gas with the backdrop of a tense political mood.
Jean-pierre Bemba, 55, who has spent more than 11 years abroad, a decade of it behind bars, has thrown down the gauntlet to Joseph Kabila, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) president, vowing to contest twice-delayed elections taking place on Dec 23.
He landed at Kinshasa from Belgium aboard a private plane after the International Criminal Court acquitted him of war crimes charges in June.
Tens of thousands of people gathered along the city’s main highway, prompting police to fire tear gas to try to make a path for his open-topped Mercedes, an AFP reporter saw.
The crowd is the DRC’S largest politically related gathering in two years – since 2016, Mr Kabila has cracked down heavily on protests.
Analysts say Mr Bemba’s return throws even more uncertainty into an already volatile election. Candidates must submit their applications by Aug 8 and physically be in the country to do so. The DRC has never known a peaceful transition of power since it gained independence from Belgium in 1960 – and some experts fear the current crisis may spiral into bloodshed.
Two wars unfolded from 1996-97 and from 1998 to 2003 that sucked in other countries in central and southern Africa. Smaller but still bloody conflicts dog the centre and east of the vast country today.
Mr Kabila, 47, took over from Laurent-desire Kabila, his father, after he was assassinated in 2001.
He was scheduled to stand down at the end of 2016 after his second elected term, technically the last permitted under the constitution. But he has stayed in office, invoking a constitutional clause enabling him to stay in power until a successor is elected.