RDC: Could Kabila run for the third term? One week left to candidates

In the DRC, the December presidential candidates have only one week left to file their case with the Electoral Commission.

On the opposition side, Jean-Pierre Bemba and Moïse Katumbi are struggling to organize their return to the country to run for office. Majority, we are still consulting. Since Saturday, members of the Common Front for Congo (FCC), the new platform of President Kabila, parade on his private farm in Kingakati, near Kinshasa.

So far, Joseph Kabila, the outgoing president, has still not said publicly that he would not run for president as reported by RFI.

On Thursday, in front of the UN Security Council, the US Deputy Ambassador was even annoyed by this silence. “The time for posturing is over,” warned Jonathan Cohen. This has angered the entourage of the Congolese head of state who continues to speak of interference.

In the last 48 hours, Joseph Kabila has received in small groups the various components of the FCC, this platform of which he is the moral authority. A platform with contours still vague, since there is already a majority and a presidential party.

The creation of the FCC had been announced in early June by a communiqué adopted in the Council of Ministers, which had made cringe. Its purpose, as announced at the time, is to support a single application.

For its members, politicians, as personalities, it is “to participate, on the basis of a common program, to the democratic conquest of power at all levels in the next elections for which the members of the coalition will bring their support for a single candidacy for the presidential election “.

To the members of this platform, first, the head of state said he was there to listen to them. With some, Joseph Kabila took the time to speak about the candidatures for the provincials, as for the legislative ones.

Since 2011, his coalition has continued to grow with the rallying of some opponents and this creates a bit of discontent, including the means put on the table for the candidatures of both. But President Kabila has mainly asked the FCC members four names of potential candidates for the presidential election.

Names of advanced dolphins?

A week before the end of the candidacy, the question of the dolphin had always been evaded, even if names had circulated: Aubin Minaku, president of the National Assembly, or Augustin Matata Ponyo, the former prime minister. This weekend, a Congolese media even announced the candidacy of Bahati Lukwebo, the Minister of State in charge of the plan, and moral authority of the second coalition of the majority, before retracting.

It’s hard to know if all these discussions are synonymous with excluding an application from Joseph Kabila. Those who are consulted sometimes have different understandings of what the head of state says. For some, it’s done, it’s clear, Joseph Kabila will not be a presidential candidate.

But his party, the PPRD, has continued to maintain ambiguity for months, ensuring that if the constitution provided for a limit on the number of two-term mandates, the constitutional reform of 2011 and the passage of the presidential election from two to one trick was enough to say that it was a new Constitution.

Last week, the PPRD youth league announced that its new motto was: “Congo, my passion. The PPRD, my party. Joseph Kabila, my president. ” Some members of his majority have even been called to rally their supporters to vote for Joseph Kabila.

A member of the FCC says: “When the president asked four names to my coalition, he was told that there was only him and we are not the only ones. President Kabila would have been “moved” by this statement, but would not have responded.

In any case, Joseph Kabila has enacted this weekend the law granting a status and additional immunity to former heads of state.

Ntakirutimana Deus