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*It's Never a Dull Day in the DRC, Like Sands through the Hourglass, So are the Days of our DRC President, as
Forum for reconciliation and Katangan unity: Kabila and Katumbi put the political landscape in turmoil
The former Congolese head of state and his former challenger exchanged a handshake in public last weekend for the first time in several years. Since then, conjectures have been rife regarding this act which took place on the eve of the next presidential election, scheduled for 2023.
In the DRC, bringing together former President Joseph Kabila and ex-Governor of Katanga Moïse Katumbi in the same room was improbable.
Getting them to exchange a hug, in public at that, seemed nigh on impossible.
However, this is the scene that hundreds of witnesses witnessed, on the morning of May 22, 2022 in the Saint Pierre and Paul cathedral in Lubumbashi.
The initiative for this event, immortalized by a particularly delighted crowd, came from Mgr Fulgence Muteba, the very influential archbishop of Lubumbashi, the gigantic city of Haut-Katanga.
Since May 17, the prelate has brought together all the sons of the region around a so-called reconciliation forum.
Objective: to silence internal quarrels in order to boost the development of this rich province.
Bishop Fulgence Muteba will therefore have succeeded in his bet.
Symbolically at least.
Joseph Kabila, 50, and Moïse Katumbi, 57, in addition to shaking hands, exchanged a few words.
Such a scenario was unimaginable a few weeks ago, given the growing animosity between the two men and this since 2015 following their political divorce after a long companionship.
Accused of alleged embezzlement of public funds when he was head of government, Augustin Matata Ponyo saw his horizons brighten in November, when the Constitutional Court considered that it had no jurisdiction to judge him, cutting short the prosecution against him.
In recent years, the former head of state and the former all-powerful governor of the richest province of Congo have fought a merciless fight against the backdrop of the presidential chair.
Unrest in the presidency?
In fact, the Congolese political microcosm is now noisy with questions about this announced reconciliation.
Many are indeed questioning both its sincerity and its scope at a time when the negotiations for the presidential election of December 2023 are already in full swing.
Are we witnessing the emergence of yet another political force?
What about the personal ambitions of each other?
The coming months should bring more clarity to this rapprochement.
One certainty, however, is that the current president, Félix Tshisekedi, must not have looked favorably on the two personalities arm in arm.
Mr. Tshisekedi, 58, is a candidate for his own succession, after falling out with his predecessor.
He now has a strained relationship with Mr. Katumbi.
Félix Tshisekedi facing these 9 fronts for the 2023 elections (Tribune de Jean-Pierre Alumba)
With the approach of the elections scheduled for next year, 2023, in September; as the Constitution stipulates in its article 73: “The ballot for the election of the President of the Republic is convened by the National and Independent Electoral Commission (CENI), 90 days before the expiry of the mandate of the President in office”.
"Elected" on the promise to make the DRC a rule of law where everything will be centered on "the people first", the pre-election organization is essential for the current Head of State of the DRC in the approach of the 2023 elections.
In the general staff of certain political parties and civil society, they are preparing to hold him to account by using, in large part, the accountability of these promises.
As for next year's elections, the current Head of State will face nine (9) probable fronts while his predecessor had only four (4).
The 4 fronts of his predecessor, Joseph Kabila were:
1. Security instability in the country;
2. The social precariousness of the majority of citizens;
3. The pressures of the West on their geostrategic interests in the DRC, in particular the revision of the mining code, the exploitation of strategic minerals, the granting of the contract for the construction of a deep water port in Banana, the execution of the Inga project III as well as the Chinese influence in the DRC;
4. The opposition (the political opposition and religious denominations had united against the regime of Joseph Kabila).
The current Head of State will face 9 fronts in the 2023 elections.
These 9 fronts will be primarily:
1. The social precariousness of the RDs. Congolese ;
2. Security instability in the country;
3. The Opposition (FCC, LAMUKA, religious denominations and part of civil society as well as the diaspora and youth movements);
4. Dysfunction within his political party UDPS;
5. The Sacred Union, a multi-headed monster (CASH, ENSEMBLE, MLC, FCC Mosaic, etc.);
6. The international community that he does not always manage to convince;
7. The opulence and euphoria of power within one's biological family;
8. Divorce with his former partner, Joseph Kabila;
9. The respect of agreements with its political partners as well as the management of their ambitions (Moïse Katumbi, Vital Kamerhe, Jean-Pierre Bemba, Christophe Mboso, Modeste Bahati, Lambert Mende, Mbusa Nyamwisi, Charles Okoto, etc.).
Faced with these 9 fronts, it will be very difficult for him to organize the elections if he is not sure of emerging victorious.
Then, he could put in place four options or scenarios allowing him to stay in power a little longer (the sliding policy), in particular:
1. Organize a dialogue for a political compromise that will allow him to get closer to his opponents by offering them a government of national unity for a period of 2 to 3 years;
2. Support the organization of rigged elections to be declared the winner by the CENI and the Constitutional Court;
3. Use the non-funding of the CENI, the enrollment of new adults, the census of citizens and the granting of identity cards to all DR Congolese;
4. Create troubled situations by voting certain problematic laws at the level of the National Assembly over which it has control.
Faced with this picture, any wise and enlightened person could ask themselves the question of how his predecessor, Joseph Kabila with 4 fronts, could not resist the pressure of these even being a politico-military – Comment va s out of the current Head of State with his 9 fronts?
Given that he does not demonstrate mastery of any important parameter of an electoral process that wants to be credible, but rather the clear desire to rig or better, to exercise large-scale fraud.
If he opts for the organization of elections in 2023, he only has one year left to do what he has not been able to achieve for 3 years.
This is the real challenge of the current Head of State to convince the electorate in 2023.
The future holds many surprises for us.
www.mediacongo.net
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