South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Friday praised Joseph Kabila, the outgoing Democratic Republic of Congo head of state, for his “respect for the constitution”, according to a statement.

The presidents met in Kinshasa for a “working visit”, the African Union said, two days after Kabila announced his withdrawal from DR Congo’s presidential race which is scheduled for the end of the year.

Kabila on Wednesday ended months of speculation by putting his weight behind former interior minister Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary to be his successor for the December 23 poll.

Ramaphosa and Kabila discussed “the evolution of the political, electoral and security situations in the DRC as well as the strengthening of relations between the two countries and issues of regional interest”, a joint statement said.

They also recognised the “significant progress made in the electoral process” in the war-torn country Kabila has ruled for 17 years.

Ramaphosa, who is also the current head of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), praised his counterpart for “honouring his word to respect the constitution” of the DR Congo, the statement added.

Equatorial Guinea’s leading opposition party also hailed Kabila on Friday, calling his decision not to run “a giant step in the history of democracy in central Africa”.

“To be a good democrat is not only to win or lose elections, but also to give up power when the law and society requires it, (to avoid) the spilling of innocent blood,” said Gabriel Nse Obiang, the leader of the Citizens for Innovation (CI) party.

Meanwhile, supporters of DR Congo opposition leader Moise Katumbi, who has been barred from entering the country to contest the election, said on Friday they had appealed to a top court.

“We have gone to the Council of State to obtain the immediate lifting of this irregular measure”, Delly Sesanga of Katumbi’s Ensemble (Together) coalition told media.

Katumbi was refused entry last week as he tried to get home via Zambia before a deadline to submit his candidacy for the presidential polls.

The wealthy businessman and former governor of the province of Katanga has been living in self-imposed exile in Belgium since May 2016 after falling out with Kabila.

A country of some 80 million people, the Democratic Republic of Congo has never known a peaceful government transition since it gained independence from Belgium in 1960.

Kabila’s tenure over the vast mineral-rich country has been marked by a reputation for corruption, inequality and unrest.</s>The UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, has commended the President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Joseph Kabila’s decision not to stand in elections scheduled to take place on Dec. 23.

In a statement issued by Mr Stéphane Dujarric, his spokesman, Guterres also welcomed the continued progress towards the holding of presidential and legislative elections in DRC in December, preparing the ground for a peaceful transfer of power.

However, in spite of Kabila’s announcement, Leila Zerrougui, the UN Special Representative for the country and head of UN Stabilisation Mission to DRC, has expressed concerns about the lack of a “level playing field” in the political process so far this year.

Zerrougui cited opposition grievances – including over voting machinery and electoral records – and ongoing human rights violations: civil society actors and political opponents in DRC continued to be arbitrarily arrested and media workers threatened.

She warned that without progress on these fronts, the credibility and inclusivity of the elections might be at risk.

In line with constitutional rules, Kabila was due to end his mandate as leader of the Central African nation, in 2016.

Following delays and subsequent political mediation, his term was extended until December 2017, but protests were sparked when polls were once again delayed by 12 months, resulting in the violent repression of demonstrators by Congolese security forces.

Kabila’s name was absent from a provisional list of candidates that was published by CENI, the DRC’s electoral commission, on Wednesday.

On Thursday, a joint statement from Canada, the US, Switzerland, the EU and African Union, as well as MONUSCO, applauded Kabila for agreeing to step down at the end of the year.</s>Did Kabila Just Bring Democracy to Congo?

In recent years, one of the chief questions in African politics was whether the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s president, Joseph Kabila, would “leave through the front door”—that is, step down voluntarily, rather than being forced out through a military coup, an invasion, or even an assassination. After all, since the 75 brutal years of Belgian rule came to an end in 1960, every one of Congo’s leaders has left through the back door. Congo’s first prime minister, Patrice Lumumba, was deposed in a coup in 1960, just months after he took office. He was executed soon after that. Mobutu Sese Seko, Congo’s extravagantly corrupt dictator who held power for 32 years, was overthrown by a coalition of rebels and invading armies in 1997. His successor, Laurent-Désiré Kabila, Joseph’s father, was assassinated by a teenage bodyguard in 2001. Never in its history has Congo experienced a peaceful transfer of power.

The prospects that it might do so soon grew brighter last week, when a government spokesman announced that Kabila will not stand for elections scheduled for this December. Instead, he has endorsed a candidate, Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, from his own party. Kabila has taken an unexpected first step toward walking out the front door. Now, the very same Western governments and international organizations that can claim some credit for pushing him toward the exit should make sure he steps through it—and applaud him when he does.

For years, Kabila delayed a vote that, according to the country’s constitution, was supposed to take place in November 2016. His government made an art of generating excuses for delay, offering laughable constitutional arguments and absurd claims of logistical difficulties—everything short of “the dog ate my ballot.” Kabila co-opted those members of the political opposition he could and sidelined those he could not. Within his own ruling coalition, he ensured that no successor emerged.

The Congolese came up with their own term for Kabila’s stalling tactics, calling them glissement (slipping), but the play for an extra term was part of a regional trend. In recent years, the leaders of Burundi, Cameroon, the Republic of Congo, Rwanda, and Uganda have maneuvered to stay in power long after their constitutions said they should have gone. In Burundi, the president’s push for a third term set off violent riots and a coup attempt. Yet the stakes were always much higher in Congo, a country the size of Western Europe and home to some 83 million people.

As Congo’s electoral timeline stretched longer and longer, the resulting political crisis threatened to engulf the whole country. Armed violence has been a permanent feature of Kabila’s Congo, thanks above all to the weakness of the state, but it had recently become more widespread, and the economy had begun cratering. And still, Kabila showed no signs of stepping down as president.

Ironically, he never wanted the job in the first place. Kabila was raised in Uganda and Tanzania, where his father lived in exile after giving up on leading a Marxist rebellion in Congo. He therefore spoke little French and even less Lingala, Congo’s most prominent African language, a deficit that would have put a damper on his political ambitions—had he harbored any. As one longtime Africa expert at the U.S. State Department once told me, “Probably his greatest aspiration was to own a fleet of taxis in Dar es Salaam.” After Laurent-Désiré Kabila’s assassination, however, the late president’s advisors settled on Kabila fils as successor during a late-night meeting. “The final hurdle was convincing Joseph himself of the plan,” a U.S. diplomatic cable at the time reported. “This proved to be more difficult than expected as Joseph was initially ‘very resistant’ to the idea.”

Why the change of heart once in office? Fear was one motivation for holding on to power. Kabila was well aware of the violent ends his predecessors met, and out of power, he could have wound up in prison or dead. To step down was to enter the great unknown, and so, for the sake of his personal safety, he chose to temporize.

Money probably played a role in his thinking, too. As detailed in a 2017 report from the Congo Research Group at New York University (published in collaboration with Bloomberg), Kabila’s family has been lining its pockets through a vast and legally complicated collection of businesses in Congo, including luxury hotels, fast-food restaurants, mobile phone networks, and insurance companies. Then there are the far more profitable off-the-books schemes—namely, corrupt mining deals that divert billions of dollars of state revenues into private bank accounts. Congo is the world’s top producer of cobalt and Africa’s top producer of copper, and every year, it exports hundreds of millions of dollars of oil, diamonds, gold, and coltan (an ore used in electronics). There is a lot of cash moving around and little transparency.

As Kabila dug in, he faced greater pressure to leave. He is deeply unpopular—one poll released in March found that 74 percent of Congolese wanted him to relinquish power immediately—and protesters took to the streets to express their displeasure, braving live fire from security forces. Youth activist groups gained strength. Kabila responded by rounding up critics and stocking up on water cannons, riot gear, and tear gas. Western governments, for their part, steadily ratcheted up sanctions against Congolese officials, freezing their assets and restricting their travel. In June, the U.S. State Department imposed fresh sanctions and visa bans on several unidentified “senior DRC officials,” and in the last week, the Trump administration signaled that sanctions targeting Kabila’s family and assets would be forthcoming if he formally declared his candidacy.

We may never know precisely which factors weighed most on Kabila’s thinking, but the sanctions clearly hit their targets. Congo’s foreign minister complained about them publicly, and other officials did so privately when meeting with Western diplomats. The United States laid down a sharp redline, making it clear that Kabila had to hold elections before the end of this year. On this front, give credit where credit is due: Despite U.S. President Donald Trump’s pro-authoritarian bent, his ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, has made pushing for a transition in Congo a priority.

Kabila being Kabila, however, one cannot be certain elections will be held until they actually are. Some activists worry that his announcement was merely a way to navigate the immediate crisis posed by the deadline for registering to run, and that he could still find a way to renege on his promise.

And even if elections do finally take place, there is no guarantee they will be free and fair. The last round of elections, held in 2011, were not: Turnout rates in some districts were suspiciously high, and hundreds of thousands of paper ballots disappeared. This time, the electoral commission, whose head is appointed by Kabila, is planning on using electronic voting machines, which could be easier to tamper with. Moreover, popular opposition figures may not be able to run. Moise Katumbi, a former ally of Kabila who served as governor of Katanga province from 2007 to 2015, has been barred from entering Congo after being convicted on charges that are widely believed to be politically motivated. Jean-Pierre Bemba, the leader of a rebel group-turned-political party, just returned to the country from ten years in The Hague after the International Criminal Court acquitted him of war crimes. He has had his eligibility as a candidate questioned and the road to his house blocked.

Almost certainly, only in a rigged election could Kabila’s chosen successor, Ramazani, win. That would be worrisome: he is a staunch Kabila loyalist whom the European Union sanctioned last year on account of his responsibility as interior minister for rounding up activists and committing other human rights violations. If Ramazani did become president, it’s possible Kabila could continue to pull the strings from behind the scenes, in the way that Vladimir Putin skirted term limits in Russia by serving as prime minister while Dmitry Medvedev was president. Indeed, there is some precedent for such an arrangement in Congo: For five years after Lumumba was ousted, a president held formal office while Mobutu acted as the power behind the throne. And Ramazani seems like good puppet material, since he has no political base of his own.

Yet even if one of the opposition candidates became president—which, to be clear, would be a very-good-case scenario—Congo would not be righted overnight. It will not be easy to strengthen the state and stamp out the county’s persistent conflicts, thus obviating the need for what is currently the world’s largest and most expensive U.N. peacekeeping mission. The problem of violence, while exacerbated by Kabila, predates him, as do the drivers of conflict, including ethnic tensions, foreign intervention, and resource competition.

Nor will corruption disappear anytime soon. Mobutu once admonished officials to “steal cleverly,” and theft is still endemic to Congolese political culture. “Here, if a street kid steals a telephone, a watch, or your voice recorder, he is in prison that same evening,” Jérôme Sekana Pene Papa, a financial journalist, told me in Kinshasa last year. “But someone who embezzles 3 or 5 million dollars? Several weeks later, he’s named to another position.”

Those would be good problems to have. They are many “ifs” down the road. In the coming months, the name of the game for outsiders with influence should be to do everything possible to ensure that elections are held on time and are as competitive as is realistically possible and, above all, to deter Kabila from breaking his promise not to run. That means sticking to clear redlines, not tolerating excuses, calling out any repression, and insisting that global and regional organizations be allowed to monitor the vote.

Once Kabila follows through on his promise, however, the international community will have to change its tune. Some will no doubt call for commissions to prosecute Kabila for the many human rights abuses that have taken place on his watch and for the profligate corruption that has impoverished so many Congolese. Tempting as justice may be, it would be a mistake to try to hold Kabila to account for his disastrous rule.

If the pressure that Western governments and international organizations put on Kabila turns out to have worked, the strategy will have succeeded because it held out the promise of a viable off-ramp for him. Yet if that off-ramp turns out to be a dead end, then future attempts at persuading dictatorial leaders to step down will suffer. Consider the bad precedent that the United States set in Libya: After convincing Muammar al-Qaddafi to eliminate his nuclear weapons program in 2003, Washington helped topple him eight years later, a lesson that is unlikely to be lost on, say, North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. If we want dictators to make concessions, then we will have to prove not just that they will be punished for defiance but also that they will be rewarded for compliance.

Mo Ibrahim, the Sudanese-born telecommunications billionaire and democracy activist, once told me that the solution to Africa’s democratic deficit might be to offer presidents-for-life the chance to become monarchs. They would agree to stay out of politics in exchange for the right to continue to live like kings. “If they are interested in the glamour of the office, and the helicopters, and limousine cars, maybe they’ll like it,” he said. Ibrahim was half-joking, but his point was correct: if it takes wasting money and foregoing justice to further the cause of democracy, then that is a tradeoff worth making.

Ever since its independence, Congo has been an international concern. In the 1960s, the country became an active front in the Cold War; in the 1970s and 1980s, the Western-backed dictatorship was a global embarrassment; and in the 1990s and early years of this century, Congo was the site of a bloody civil war involving nine African countries. Kabila’s announcement that he is stepping down represents the most promising sign to date that Congo has a chance of becoming something resembling a normal country, with its fate not imposed from without but chosen from within. Only once the West works itself out of a job will the country enjoy what it has been denied for too long: true independence.</s>The ruling party in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), The Peoples’ Party for Reconciliation and Democracy, made an announcement recently that took everybody by surprise — that Joseph Kabila will not be its presidential candidate come the December 2018 general election.

Kabila has been in power since 2001 and was widely expected to cling to the presidency beyond his constitutional term limits. He took over after the assassination of his father Laurent Désiré Kabila who had overthrown Mobutu Sese Seko in 1997.

The country has been on tenterhooks since late July when the nomination period opened, tensely awaiting Kabila’s decision on his candidacy. He was barred from running for a third term under the country’s constitution. But many feared he would do so anyway.

The US welcomed Kabila’s decision to stand down. But Nikki Haley, US ambassador to the United Nations, noted that much more still needed to be done in terms of ensuring a stable democratic transition in the DRC.

Nevertheless, the party’s announcement means that for the first time in modern Congolese history, presidential power will be transferred through an election. Instead of Kabila, the Peoples’ Party for Reconciliation and Democracy has fronted former interior minister Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary as its presidential candidate.

Many commentators have described Shadary as a loyal regime hardliner. There should be no illusions that his candidacy means that the DRC faces a brighter democratic future. He is very close to Kabila (as he was to his father) and is unlikely to threaten the incumbant’s grip on power. Kabila will most likely pull the strings in the background if Shadary is elected president in December.

One of the founders of the Peoples’ Party for Reconciliation and Democracy , Shadary’s administrative career began in 1997 when the former president Laurent Désire Kabila, appointed him as vice-governor of the eastern Maniema province. A year later, he became governor. Maniema is an important mining centre in eastern Congo even if it’s not the most significant as it contains diamonds, copper, gold and cobalt resources.

Since 2012, Shadary has been the president of the party’s parliamentary group. He wields a lot of power in Kinshasa. Until February this year he was instrumental in organising the violent repression of protesters in the capital.

The US and EU have imposed sanctions on Shadary for his involvement in repressive activities. This means that even if he’s elected president, he will not be allowed to enter America or Europe.

That notwithstanding, the EU and the US are among the DRC’s largest donors. And their sanctions have not impeded Shadary’s rise to power.

Shadary’s candidature means that Kabila may still retain a good deal of power. There’s speculation that he could become prime minister under Shadary. The president can technically choose the prime minister under the Congolese constitution although their choice has to be ratified by the National Assembly. If Shadary was elected, and Kabila was chosen as his president, then this cohabitation would increase Kabila’s power as PM. Both men would be from the same party, the PPRD, and so the president would find it difficult to exercise power without Kabila’s support.

There’s also speculation that he could run in the next presidential elections that would occur five years after the next president is elected in 2023.

Both these developments – assuming the role of prime ministers as well as skipping a turn at the presidency – would be similar to the way in which Russian President Vladimir Putin held on to power. Firstly, he allowed Dmitry Medvedev to become President of Russia in 2008, only to take over the role himself in 2012. And he served as prime minister under Medvedev.

Shadary has support in his Maniema stronghold. But it’s uncertain what his appeal is beyond the region. He will nevertheless benefit from the narrow field and the resources at the PPRD’s disposal.

It’s almost certain that the hugely popular former governor of Katanga, Moise Katumbi, will not be able to run for the presidency. Katumbi, who has been in exile for two years, was denied entry when he tried to enter the DRC at the Zambian border. There has been widespread protests against the move, mainly in the southeastern city of Lubumbashi. But he hasn’t been allowed home.

First, he will have to compete with Félix Tshisekedi, the son of long-time opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi who is trying to step out of his father’s shadow during this campaign. Tshisekedi is running on a Union for Democracy and Social Progress ticket. The party is one of the DRC’s longest lasting opposition parties, and Tshisekedi has had a lot of time to campaign. The latest poll showed that he is likely to get 19% of the vote. But without Katumbi or Kabila in the race, his chances of success have gone up.

The other man to watch is Jean-Pierre Bemba. He recently returned to the DRC after being released from prison following his conviction on war crimes and crimes against humanity being overturned on appeal at the International Criminal Court.

Bemba is trailing Tshisekedi in the polls, but has had far less time to organise his campaign. He could well turn out to be a political thorn in Shadary’s side.

As it turns out, Kabila’s decision not to run in the upcoming elections has opened up the field to some extent. The focus now shifts to Shadary, and whether he will allow his opponents the freedom to campaign in the days ahead. As Kabila has decided he’s not running, there is some hope for a more democratic DR-Congo. However, it’s unlikely to be a wholly free and fair election and it may well result in Kabila remaining in power if not in office.</s>President Cyril Ramaphosa has this morning, 10 August 2018, arrived in Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo for a Working Visit. This is President Ramaphosa’s first visit to the Democratic Republic of the Congo since his election as President of the Republic of South Africa in February 2018. The President and his counterpart […]

President Cyril Ramaphosa has this morning, 10 August 2018, arrived in Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo for a Working Visit. ...



Source : http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Appa-sourceTheAfric...</s>There will be 25 candidates in December's presidential election in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, a former interior minister named by the government last Wednesday as the ruling coalition candidate, is described as an independent, according to a preliminary list issued by the electoral commission.

Shadary, who is on an EU sanctions blacklist, was anointed after President Joseph Kabila bowed to international and domestic pressure and decided not to run again in the election scheduled for 23 December.

The three main opposition contenders are Félix Tshisekedi, Jean-Pierre Bemba and Vital Kamerhe, who could eventually decide to line up behind a single candidate.

Tshisekedi is leader of Congo's oldest opposition party, the Union for Democracy and Social Progress, and the son of Etienne Tshisekedi who died last year.

Bemba is a former warlord and Kabila rival, who returned to Kinshasa this month after being acquitted of war crimes charges by the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Kamerhe is the leader of the opposition Union for the Congolese Nation and has previously served as parliamentary speaker and information minister.

The oldest candidate is 92-year-old Antoine Gizenga, a former prime minister who was a brother-in-arms to national independence hero Patrice Lumumba and more recently a prime minister under Joseph Kabila after he first came to power in 2006.

The electoral body is expected to publish another provisional list of candidates at the end of August and a final list on 19 September, three months ahead of polling.

Rwanda's President Paul Kagame has sacked the entire staff of a Ministry of Health unit accused of gross mismanagement of public resources.

Regional paper the East African says more ministry officials are likely to be prosecuted following the sacking of the human resources director and 23 employees of the Rwanda Biomedical Centre, supposed to oversee medical and healthcare services.

The cabinet, chaired by the president, last week sacked the director of human resources and administration at the ministry and the director of the Health Technology and Infrastructure Planning Unit, along with 22 staff members.

The sackings were related to inefficiencies affecting the performance of the health sector.

The unprecedented move comes after persistent adverse reports by the auditor-general showing serious financial flaws at some public institutions.

The sacked officials are likely to face prosecution for the mismanagement of public resources.

The South African government needs the rand equivalent of two-and-a-half billion euros to boost an economy teetering on the brink of recession, the top story in this morning's Johannesburg-based financial paper BusinessDay tells us.

The money will be required to fund, among other things, the stimulus package announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa two weeks ago. The figures discussed by cabinet last week were not limited to the stimulus package but also included funds needed to assist ailing state-owned entities, according to a government statement issued yesterday.

The president has promised that the economic stimulus package will be based on existing budgetary resources and the pursuit of new investments.

Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene is due to make his medium-term budget policy statement in October.

The South Sudanese army and allied militia have been accused by the United Nations of killing over 200 civilians, committing rape and burning villages in a series of attacks carried out in the southern Unity state between 16 April and 24 May this year, according to this morning's Sudan Tribune.

The report by the UN's Human Rights Commission, based on investigations carried out by the organisation's peacekeepers, says the Sudan Peoples Liberation Army and allied forces attacked at least 40 villages or settlements in the reporting period, killing 232 civilians.

According to the report, the reason for these attacks, which took place after the signing of a cessation of hostilities agreement in December 2017, was to increase territories under government control by retaking areas in the hands of rebel forces loyal to Riek Machar.</s>The UN Security Council on Monday welcomed President Joseph Kabila’s decision to not seek re-election in the Democratic Republic of Congo and said the polls must now lead to a peaceful transfer of power.

In power since 2001, Kabila last week appeared to bow to international pressure when his governing coalition picked Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary as its presidential candidate in the December 23 vote.

The council said in a statement drafted by France that it “welcomed President Joseph Kabila’s respect for his commitment to abide by the Congolese constitution”.

Council members said the “entire Congolese political class and the institutions responsible for organizing elections” must remain “committed to ensure the success of the rest of the electoral process, leading to a peaceful transfer of power.”

The United States, France and Britain had urged Kabila to state clearly that he would not seek another term amid fears that his failure to step aside could trigger violence.

The DR Congo has never known a peaceful transition of power since independence from Belgium in 1960.

The Security Council is planning to visit the DR Congo before the elections, possibly in October.</s>Three opposition heavyweights, a 92-year-old ally of an independence hero and the president's chosen successor are among 25 candidates who have registered to run in the Democratic Republic of Congo's long-awaited elections.

Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, a former interior minister named by the government on Wednesday as the ruling coalition candidate, was listed as an independent, according to a preliminary electoral commission list issued Friday.

Shadary, who is on an EU sanctions blacklist, was anointed after President Joseph Kabila bowed to intense international and domestic pressure and decided not to run again in the elections scheduled for December 23.

The three main opposition politicians to throw their hats in the ring are Felix Tshisekedi, Jean-Pierre Bemba and Vital Kamerhe, who could eventually decide to line up behind a single candidate.

Tshisekedi, 55, is leader of Congo's oldest opposition party UDPS and the son of longstanding opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi who died last year.

Bemba, also 55, is a former warlord and Kabila rival, who returned to Kinshasa this month after being acquitted of war crimes convictions by the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Kamerhe, 59, is the leader of the opposition Union for the Congolese Nation, although he has previously served as parliamentary speaker and information minister.

The oldest candidate is Antoine Gizenga, 92, a former prime minister who was a brother-in-arms to national independence hero Patrice Lumumba and more recently a prime minister under Kabila after he first came to power in 2006.

The electoral body is expected to publish another provisional list of candidates on August 24 and a final list on September 19, just three months ahead of the vote.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa meets with President Joseph Kabila of DR Congo in Kinshasa, praising him for his "respect for the constitution" by agreeing to step down and not take part in the upcoming December 2018 Congolese general election.