Following the resignation Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) Prime Minister Augustin Matata Ponyo yesterday, opposition politician Vital Kamerhe, whose faction signed a power-sharing agreement with President Joseph Kabila, is likely to be named new PM.
According to the agreement, Kabila can stay in office until the organization of elections — which have been provisionally scheduled for April 2018 — and Kamerhe’s opposition faction will join a government of national unity. A larger opposition coalition, known as the Rassemblement, has rejected the agreement although a new government of national unity with Kamerhe as PM is expected to be named shortly.
Yesterday Mr Kamerhe met with the president, and said his faction and Kabila ‘will manage the country together’ to organize elections.
The dissolution of the government had been expected since October 18 when Kabila and Kamerhe supporters reached a deal for managing the country after December 19, the final day of the president’s second and, under the current constitution, final term.
During the weekend, Kabila met with a UN Security Council delegation that urged Congolese political and social actors to work toward consensual and inclusive elections.
Lambert Mende, DRC’s minister of communications who announced that Monday’s press conference would be his last one, had firm words for the UN delegation, which asked Kabila about the lack of clarity around the date of the next election.
According to Mende, Kabila was surprised to be asked about election dates when that area is the constitutional prerogative of the independent electoral commission.
The Rassemblement accuses the president of deliberately undermining the commission to postpone elections.
Mende also criticized the delegation’s focus on whether Kabila intends to change the constitution to allow him to stand for a third term.
Quoting Kabila, Mende said it is curious that such questions about possible third terms are so often put to the president of the DRC, a country where no one has ever considered changing the constitution — unlike several other countries in Africa. Mende, still quoting Kabila, also said the president has repeatedly said the constitution, which excludes a third term, will be respected.
The Rassemblement accuses the president of planning to remove term limits before the next election.
Meanwhile, President Kabila is set to address members of both chambers of his country’s Parliament today, in what the media has described as ‘a rare address’.
