A pledge by the Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) defeated presidential candidate to enter the opposition peacefully came as a relief to many on Wednesday, but concerns lingered that President Joseph Kabila may deny his party a meaningful role.
Fears of a violent backlash were allayed on Tuesday when former rebel Jean-Pierre Bemba vowed, in the name of peace, to lead the opposition rather than challenge a Supreme Court decision confirming Kabila as president.
But hope that polls, meant to draw a line under a 1998 to 2003 war, have ushered in a new era for the DRC were matched by fears that a Bemba-led opposition could be marginalised and even forced back on to the streets.
Kabila’s majority in the new Parliament has allowed his lawmakers to alter procedures for choosing members of key commissions, charged with leading investigations and audits.
”This still worried us a lot. If it is not corrected, it will prevent us from playing our role as the opposition,” Thomas Luhaka, executive secretary of Bemba’s party, told Reuters on Wednesday.
”Talks are ongoing but we may be forced into radicalising our position, either through the media or on the streets.”
The commissions were originally meant to reflect the representation of Parliament, where Kabila’s coalition controls over 300 of the 500 seats. But the new laws mean the posts will be chosen by majority, favouring the president’s candidates.
Kabila won the run-off against Bemba with 58% of the vote. But most of his support came from his native east, while Bemba performed strongly in the west, especially the capital Kinshasa, where the president is deeply unpopular.
”This is serious. Parliament’s role of overseeing the executive is completely eroded,” Jason Stearns, senior analyst at the International Crisis Group, told Reuters.
Denied a voice
Stearns said the role of checks and balances was particularly important in a nascent political system such as the DRC’s. The former Belgian colony has experienced little but dictatorship, war and chaos during the last four decades.
”Otherwise, the political opposition will not have the feeling that they will have a voice in Parliament. They may ask why they will bother to go along with it,” he added.
The international community has spent over $500-million on the elections and DRC is home to the United Nations’ largest peacekeeping mission, which has over 17 600 blue helmets spread across the vast country.
Leading up to the polls, UN officials and foreign governments pressured both candidates to accept the results, highlighting the role the opposition should play in building a democracy.
Some of the president’s more hard-line supporters, however, look forward to him ruling without a cumbersome apparatus around him. ”Joseph Kabila, the elected president, can rub his hands with glee,” L’Avenir, a pro-Kabila newspaper, wrote in an editorial last week.
”He has a legislative machine that will help him carry out the necessary reforms to fulfil his promise of turning DRC into the China of Africa,” it added.
But some diplomats who have followed the transition from war to elections are less convinced.
”From an economic perspective, we can see the benefits. But from the political perspective, this is quite scary,” a Western diplomat told Reuters.
”It [Parliament] does run the risk of becoming a rubber-stamping chamber for Kabila and undermines attempts at pushing through moves to improve good governance,” the diplomat added. — Reuters