KINSHASA (Reuters) &#8211; Democratic Republic of Congo’s electoral commission on Thursday declared opposition leader Felix Tshisekedi the surprise winner of last month’s chaotic presidential election, but the runner-up dismissed the outcome as an “electoral coup”.



The result sets the stage for Congo’s first democratic transfer of power, but also a tense political standoff with the potential for the kind of violence that followed polls in 2006 and 2011 whose outcome was contested.



Vote tallies by Congo’s Catholic church (CENCO) showed second-placed opposition candidate Martin Fayulu as victor, according to two diplomats briefed on the findings.



Tshisekedi won with 38.57 percent of more than 18 million ballots cast, Corneille Nangaa, the president of the election commission (CENI), told a news conference at 3 a.m. (0200 GMT) that seemed timed to avoid any immediate reaction in the streets.



READ: <a href="http://cnbc.africa/news/international/2019/01/02/drc-elections-felix-tshisekedi/">DRC elections: Downpours,no internet drudgery and a fisherman’s find on the way to a Mandela- inspired tomorrow?</a>



“Felix Tshisekedi Tshilombo is declared the provisionally- elected president of Democratic Republic of Congo,” Nangaa said, to a mixture of cheers and gasps inside CENI headquarters.



In the Kinshasa neighbourhood of Limete where Tshisekedi lives, thousands of people danced in the streets in celebration and cars slowed down and honked their horns.



Some chanted that Congo had “turned the page” on the Kabila era, which began in 1997 when Joseph Kabila’s father, Laurent, led a rebellion that overthrew longtime leader Mobutu Sese Seko. Joseph took over in 2001 when Laurent was assassinated.



“For a ruler to pass power to an opponent is rare, and it gives hope for the rest of Africa,” said John, a school teacher in Kinshasa who declined to give his full name.



“We now want change with this new power. Poverty, insecurity, killings, we must finish with all this.”



Speaking to cheering supporters at his campaign headquarters, Tshisekedi paid his respects to outgoing President Joseph Kabila, whom he called “an important political partner”, and promised to rule for all Congo’s 80 million people.



“I will not be the president of a political organisation &#8230; I will not be the president of a tribe &#8230; I will be the president of all Congolese,” he said.



If Tshisekedi’s victory is confirmed in the next 10 days by the constitutional court, he will become the first leader to take power at the ballot box since Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, who was toppled in a coup less than three months after independence in 1960 and killed four months later.



Opposition fears that authorities would rig the vote in favour of Kabila’s hand-picked candidate, Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, did not materialise as Shadary finished a distant third to Tshisekedi and Fayulu, with about 4.4 million votes.



However, the result will fuel suspicion among Fayulu’s supporters that Tshisekedi, shown by pre-election opinion polls to be running well behind Fayulu, struck a power-sharing pact with Kabila.



Tshisekedi’s camp has acknowledged contact with Kabila’s representatives since the vote but said they were aimed at ensuring a peaceful transition and denied there had been any deal. [nL8N1Z849V]



In an interview with Radio France Internationale, Fayulu, who was backed by prominent foes of Kabila, described the vote as an “electoral coup”.



“The results have nothing to do with the truth of the ballot box,” he told RFI, and called on observers of the Dec. 30 vote to publish the real results.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">CONTESTATION</h3>



Tshisekedi is the son of the legendary Etienne Tshisekedi, who led opposition to three successive presidents over 35 years. Felix’s profile rose when his father died in 2017 after helping to negotiate Kabila’s reluctant departure.



Kabila initially refused to step down when his mandate ended in 2016. In an interview last month, he did not rule out running again for president in 2023.



Losing candidates can contest Tshisekedi’s victory before Congo’s constitutional court, which has 10 days to hear and rule on any challenges.



Any widespread perception the election has been stolen could set off a destabilising cycle of unrest, particularly in the volatile eastern borderlands where Fayulu enjoyed some of his strongest support.



The Catholic Church’s bishops conference said last week that it knew the identity of the winner and demanded that CENI publish accurate results. The Church did not say who it thought the winner was, but briefed diplomats on its conclusions. CENCO was not immediately available for comment after the results.



The vote was initially delayed by a week in part because of a fire that destroyed ballot papers. Authorities cancelled voting on election day for more than one million people, saying the vote could not go ahead because of an Ebola outbreak and militia violence.



Observers said many polling stations opened late and closed early and in some places voting machines malfunctioned.



Additional reporting by Fiston Mahamba in Goma; Additional reporting and writing by Aaron Ross and Edward McAllister; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall and Clarence Fernandez

DRC elections: Opposition leader Tshisekedi clinches surprise win in presidential election, here’s what happens next

By Chris Bishop, head of programming CNBC Africa



The results of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s rare elections are expected this weekend, according to a special adviser to one of the candidates promising a business friendly government and Mandela-style reconciliation for the war torn, yet mineral rich,nation.



It has been a journey of drudgery, downpours, allegations of fraud and protest since the polls opened on December 30 to find a successor to Joseph Kabila. He has stepped down after nearly two decades running the country that his father, Laurent, who died in a mysterious assassination in 2001, took control of in 1997 after overthrowing Mobuto Sese Seko.



Felix Tshisekedi, the son of a former minister who studied in Belgium and set up his own delivery business in Brussels after years working in the Post Office, is fighting it out with former Exxon Mobil manager and opposition lawmaker Martin Fayulu and the man with Kabila’s vote, former interior minister Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary.



 <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/RDC?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#RDC</a> Le Président Joseph <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Kabila?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Kabila</a> a rempli son devoir civique, en compagnie des siens, ce dimanche 30 décembre 2018 à Kinshasa. <a href="https://t.co/tMiljzmywD">pic.twitter.com/tMiljzmywD</a>— Présidence RDC ?? (@Presidence_RDC) <a href="https://twitter.com/Presidence_RDC/status/1079286376816930816?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 30, 2018</a></blockquote>
<script async="" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>



“The latest we are leading by between 40 and 45%, in 13 out of 14 provinces. Around 70% of the vote has been counted and we understand all the votes have been captured,” says Claude Ibalanky Ekolomba, the special adviser to Tshisekedi . 



“Overall we are excited and extremely confident. We are leading the race at the moment.”



<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><a href="http://cnbc.africa/news/international/2018/12/31/drc-elections-why-the-opposition-is-crying-foul/">Read: DRC elections: Opposition, ruling coalition both say they’ve won, here’s why</a></h3>



Ibalanky Ekolomba, who is visiting Johannesburg, admits it is difficult to keep contact with the people back in the DRC with the internet shut down by the state for fear it may stir unrest.



“We have ways to get through, it is not always reliable but we do and it is the people on the ground who know what is happening,” he says. He pointed to a case of alleged fraud where a bag of votes for Tshisekedi were found by a fisherman in a river near Lake Kivu who simply picked it up and reported it to the authorities.



“You cannot stop 30 million people witnessing their own election and when things are happening we are told.”



Ibalanky Ekolomba says Tshisekedi wants to be a business friendly president, if elected, in search of the foreign direct investment that the DRC desperately needs to reap the rewards of its rich minerals.&nbsp;Tshisekedi did not plan to cancel contracts with foreign companies as had been done before after changes of government.



“If we find a mistake in a contract we will engage and see how we are going to correct it,” he says.



“Some people are fearing we will be hard on business but not at all – we will be open for business.”



Tshisekedi also promises to appoint people to government on merit.



“Fighting corruption and money laundering. There will be no witch hunt among people who were members of the former government, we will be saying let’s build this country together just like Mandela did,” says Ibalanky Ekolomba.&nbsp;

DRC elections: Downpours,no internet drudgery and a fisherman’s find on the way to a Mandela- inspired tomorrow?

KINSHASA (Reuters) &#8211; Democratic Republic of Congo’s opposition said on Monday it expected one of its candidates to win the presidential election based on early vote tallies, but the ruling coalition said it was confident its candidate had won the chaotic contest.



The competing claims followed a disorderly election day on Sunday in which many Congolese were unable to vote due to an Ebola outbreak, conflict and logistical problems.



The vote is meant to choose a successor to outgoing President Joseph Kabila after 18 years in power and could lead to the vast central African country’s first ever democratic transition.



Any disputed outcome could lead to a repeat of the violence that followed the 2006 and 2011 elections and a wider security breakdown, particularly along Congo’s borders with Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi, where dozens of armed militia are active.



Vital Kamerhe, the campaign manager to opposition candidate Felix Tshisekedi, said early counting showed Tshisekedi and the other main opposition candidate Martin Fayulu neck-and-neck in the lead, both with over 40 percent of the vote.



He said the ruling coalition candidate, Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, who is backed by Kabila, had only about 13 percent, although a significant part of the vote remained to be tabulated.



The election is a first-past-the-post system with no run-off.



Nehemie Mwilanya, Kabila’s chief of staff and a member of Shadary’s campaign, told a news conference on Monday morning that he was confident Shadary had won, although he did not provide specific figures.



“For us, victory is certain,” Mwilanya said.



Fayulu’s camp has not yet provided specific numbers but Fayulu said late on Sunday that Shadary’s camp was “dreaming” if it thought it was going to win.



The most recent opinion poll before the election, released by New York University’s Congo Research Group on Friday, showed Fayulu, a former Exxon Mobil manager, leading the race on 47 percent.



Tshisekedi had 24 percent and Shadary 19 percent.



The first partial results are expected from the national electoral commission (CENI) on Tuesday.



Election day was mostly peaceful despite several violent incidents, including an altercation at a polling place in eastern Congo in which at least three people were killed.



More than 1.2 million Congolese were also unable to vote in three opposition strongholds, where the CENI cancelled the poll last week, citing an ongoing Ebola outbreak and ethnic violence.



However, in the Ebola hotspot of Beni, an opposition stronghold, residents staged a mock presidential election to show the authorities a decision to postpone the vote there due to health fears was unfounded.



Writing By Aaron Ross, Editing by William Maclean

Update DRC elections: Opposition, ruling coalition both say they’ve won, here’s why

KINSHASA (Reuters) &#8211; Long queues, broken-down machines and torrential rain in the capital disrupted voting in Democratic Republic of Congo’s long-anticipated presidential poll on Sunday, as the opposition alleged widespread irregularities.



<a href="http://cnbc.africa/news/international/2018/12/28/why-protests-are-erupting-as-drc-elections-loom/">Three opposition strongholds will see no casting of ballots</a> at all after the authorities cancelled the vote there, citing health risks from an ongoing Ebola outbreak and ethnic violence.



READ: <a href="http://cnbc.africa/news/international/2018/12/28/drcs-best-known-political-cartoonist-making-light-of-grim-realities-shares-his-election-hopes/">DRC’s best known political cartoonist: Making light of grim realities shares his election hopes</a>



Some polling places in other opposition bastions in the capital Kinshasa did not open until more than seven hours after the 6 a.m. (0500 GMT) start because voter rolls had not arrived.



Elections are a rare event in Congo, which has been plagued by authoritarian rule, assassinations, coups and civil wars since independence from Belgium in 1960.



If President Joseph Kabila, in power since his father’s assassination in 2001, steps down after the vote it will be the country’s first ever democratic transition.



Kabila voted early in the morning in Kinshasa at the same school as the candidate he is backing, former interior minister Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, whom the latest opinion polls showed trailing two opposition candidates.



“My only concern is that we have this very heavy rain and probably voter turnout might be low, but hopefully the skies will clear, and the voters will turn out in numbers,” Kabila, wearing a dark blue suit, told reporters.



The Catholic bishops conference (CENCO) said electronic voting machines, criticised by the opposition as vulnerable to fraud, had dysfunctioned in at least 544 of 12,300 polling places it monitored. It also said 846 polling stations were installed in “prohibited places” like military and police posts.



Some voters also complained they could not find their names on the rolls, and flooded streets in Kinshasa prevented others from reaching their polling stations.



SPONSORED STORIESADVERTISING



<figure><iframe></iframe></figure>



<figure><iframe></iframe></figure>



Vital Kamerhe, the campaign director for Felix Tshisekedi, one of the two leading opposition candidates in the race, said he had received reports of fraud in Shadary’s favour.



In the western city of Inongo, Kamerhe said, the head of a polling place was found voting several times for Shadary and three machines there were converting votes for Tshisekedi into votes for Shadary.



Reuters could not independently confirm the allegations, and the national electoral commission (CENI) said in a tweet that in Inongo and several other cities, “voting operations are underway and everything is going well”.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">PROTESTS</h3>



Despite repeated delays to the contest, which was originally meant to take place in 2016, diplomats and poll observers have said authorities are ill-prepared, raising fears of a repeat of the violence that followed elections in 2006 and 2011.



Kabila’s agreement to stick to constitutional term limits should represent progress for the mineral-rich country. But he could continue to exercise influence from the sidelines and has not ruled out running again for president in 2023.



Violent protests erupted this week after authorities announced that voting had been cancelled in the Ebola-hit eastern cities of Beni and Butembo, their surrounding areas and the western city of Yumbi.



Together, they account for more than 1.2 million out of the Central African country’s 40 million voters nationwide and are all considered opposition bastions.



In Beni, dozens of voters lined up on Sunday morning to write their choices on sheets of paper, residents said.



Voting was mostly peaceful across the country, but there were a few violent incidents. In the central city of Kananga, the head of a polling place was beaten up by voters who suspected him of trying to cheat when he moved a broken-down voting machine from the room, two local activists said.



In eastern Congo’s Masisi territory, militia fighters were also reported around polling sites, pressuring people to vote for their preferred candidates, a Western diplomat said.



The most recent poll released by New York University’s Congo Research Group on Friday showed former Exxon Mobil manager and opposition lawmaker Martin Fayulu leading the race on 47 percent, buoyed by discontent with Kabila’s 18-year tenure.



Under Kabila, Congo has seen strong economic growth from surging copper and cobalt output but only meagre improvements to average people’s quality of life.



Another opposition leader, Felix Tshisekedi, trailed in the poll with 24 percent, while Shadary got 19 percent.



“I will vote for Martin Fayulu,” said Mama Wivine, 40 and unemployed, as she waited for the machine to arrive at her polling place in Kinshasa’s Camp Luka neighbourhood. “We hope he can bring jobs and better conditions for us Congolese. We are fed up with the regime of Kabila.”



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">DUELLING EXPECTATIONS</h3>



After voting in Kinshasa, Fayulu said: “Today, we mark the end of Mr. Kabila, the end of the misery of the Congolese people.”



But Shadary has big institutional advantages, including round-the-clock coverage on state media. Kabila appointees also dominate national institutions.



“I think victory is on my side and that tonight I will be president,” Shadary said after casting his ballot.



The CENI has tried to reassure the opposition about the voting machines by saying that only print-outs from the machines counted by hand will be factored into the official results.



But any disputed outcome could lead to a wider security breakdown across Congo, particularly along its eastern borders with Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi, where dozens of armed militia are active.



The last polls close at 5 p.m. (1600 GMT), although voting will continue for those still in line. Voters are also choosing representatives for the national and provincial assemblies.



Reporting by Giulia Paravicini and Fiston Mahamba; Additional reporting by Baz Ratner, Sabiti Djaffar and Juliette Jabkhiro; Writing by Aaron Ross and Alessandra Prentice; Editing by Helen Popper, Christopher Cushing and Raissa Kasolowsky, William Maclean

DRC elections: After three postponements, voting takes place, this is the outcome so far…

KINSHASA, Dec 28 (Reuters) &#8211; Thembo Kashauri has sketched some of the most scathing parodies of Joseph Kabila, yet Congo’s best-known political cartoonist has mixed feelings about the taciturn president’s impending departure after nearly two decades in power.



“He had an atypical personality for a head of state but he inspired a lot of my drawings,” the cartoonist known as Kash said in his cramped studio cluttered with old computer equipment in the capital Kinshasa.



“His silences were so eloquent that the fact he didn’t speak much said a lot,” he said of Kabila, who has governed Democratic Republic of Congo since his father’s assassination in 2001.



After Kabila finally agreed not to defy presidential term limits by standing in Sunday’s election, Kash drew a weeping Joseph with his signature salt-and-pepper beard and thick head of hair being comforted by South Africa’s president.



“Power is life,” sobs Kabila as Cyril Ramaphosa reassures him there is life after the presidency.



The election, which has turned into a race between Kabila’s favoured candidate and two main opposition challengers, could lead to Congo’s first democratic transfer of power after decades marked by armed conflicts.



But the poll, which is already two years late because Kabila refused to go when his mandate expired, has been marred by killings on the campaign trail and opposition outcry after the electoral commission cancelled the vote in several of their strongholds, citing security and health concerns.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">‘TURN THE PAGE’</h3>



Kash, 53, is well-accustomed to finding ways to make light of Congo’s grim realities, but he hopes the outcome of Sunday’s vote could lighten the dark mood that permeates his sketches.



“If one of the opposition candidates took power, I think &#8230; we could turn the page,” he said.



Kash, who draws for Le Potentiel, an opposition-leaning daily in Kinshasa, and the news site actualite.cd, has found plenty to poke fun at during a topsy-turvy campaign.



After the electoral commission announced last week yet another seven-day delay to the vote, Kash sketched commission president Corneille Nangaa on an A4 sheet of paper in chef’s whites in a smoke-filled kitchen.



While Nangaa stirs a big pot labelled “December 30 cassoulet”, an anxious waitress asks if the food is ready as the diners are on the verge of rioting.



“I’m trying to portray Congolese people’s anxiety about December 30,” Kash told Reuters after filling in an initial pencil sketch with bold strokes of thick black marker.



Kash, who hails from the eastern city of Beni, began his career as a painter but learned to draw cartoons from a Belgian artist and started to sketch for magazines in the 1980s.



At first, he stuck to cartoons about music and culture but he started depicting veteran Congolese autocrat Mobutu Sese Seko in 1990 after his forces massacred dozens of students in the southeastern city of Lubumbashi.



“We couldn’t caricature politics,” he said. “In 1990, I was just about the first to caricature Mobutu.”



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION</h3>



Often heavy-handed repression of journalists and activists has continued since the Mobutu era through the administrations of Laurent Kabila and his son, Joseph.



But Kash says he rarely faces official pressure to tone down his drawings &#8211; even if his newspaper occasionally won’t run cartoons it deems too provocative.



READ: <a href="http://cnbc.africa/news/international/2018/12/28/why-protests-are-erupting-as-drc-elections-loom/">Why protests are erupting as DRC elections loom</a>



On several occasions, he has drawn Congo as an open-air prison hemmed in by high walls and barbed wire. In 2014, he drew Kabila trying on Mobutu’s trademark leopard-skin hat as the old dictator tells him he’ll be able to hold on to power if he just adds a cane and glasses to his repertoire.



Kash’s ability to mock the rich and powerful in Congo reflects in part a country that has long proved too big and too unruly for any leader to muzzle its famed sense of humour, unlike its more tightly controlled neighbours.



“The freedom of expression we have in Congo is the result of a long struggle. In Brazzaville and Rwanda, you don’t mess around. You’ll get yourself killed,” he said.



Even so, there are few other cartoonists who have his fearless style. “They’re too timid,” said Kash.



Despite his self-avowed fondness for drawing Kabila, Kash said his would-be successors have some potential too.



One of the frontrunners, Felix Tshisekedi, has the same bulk as his father, the late opposition icon Etienne, and sports the same distinctive flat cap. Kash said he also enjoys drawing Kabila’s preferred successor, Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary.



“Since he was picked as the heir apparent, I’ve been able to draw him fairly easily because he has quite fine features &#8211; the nose, the body. He’s an interesting subject to draw.” (Reporting by Alessandra Prentice in Kinshasa and Aaron Ross in Dakar; editing by David Clarke)

DRC’s best known political cartoonist: Making light of grim realities shares his election hopes

By Francois Conradie, Head of Research at NKC African Economics
The Constitutional Court in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has, over the past two days, delivered some verdicts that aim to boost the chances of Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, the candidate of President Joseph Kabila’s Common Front for Congo (FCC), to win the presidential election in December.
These schemes are negatively affecting political risk by further delegitimising an already widely discredited electoral process, with the result that Congolese who are tired of Mr Kabila’s rule will be more likely to take to the streets in protest.
The biggest shock to opposition supporters was the Court’s confirmation of the barring of Jean-Pierre Bemba, a former vice-president and military commander, running on the platform of the Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC).
On Tuesday, September 4, the Constitutional Court ruled that Mr Bemba was ineligible to run in the election because of his 2016 conviction at the International Criminal Court (ICC) for bribing witnesses.
According to the Constitutional Court, this interference with the judicial process is a form of corruption, and a conviction for corruption, according to the DRC’s electoral law, is reason for a potential candidate to be barred from running. It accordingly upheld the decision of the Independent National Electoral Commission (Ceni), handed down in late August, to bar Mr Bemba.
The latter said in response that the “Constitutional Court obeys the orders of the power in place…so that the candidate of the power does not have a serious candidate facing him.”
The court also upheld the Ceni’s decision to bar five other candidates. The definitive list of candidates will be published on September 19.
Mr Bemba had advised patience pending the Constitutional Court’s verdict, but it is now certain that he has been barred from running against Mr Shadary, the ‘candidate of the power’, in December.
Eve Bazaiba, the MLC’s secretary general, has said that “no one can [now] fault the MLC an active inclination towards large-scale citizen action”, and we expect to see some of that, at least, in the coming months.
With Moise Katumbi out of the running too (he was prevented from returning to the DRC to register as a candidate), Felix Tshisekedi of the Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS) is the only serious candidate on the opposition side and we expect him to gain some default support as a result, but we still consider Mr Shadary easily the favourite to win.

DRC top court deems opposition leader Bemba ineligible to run in election boosting Shadary’s chances

<div style="display: block; position: relative; max-width: 730px;">
<div style="padding-top: 56.25%;"><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100%; position: absolute; top: 0px; bottom: 0px; right: 0px; left: 0px;" src="//players.brightcove.net/1571595826001/default_default/index.html?videoId=5826285947001" allowfullscreen="" border=0 frameborder=0></iframe></div>
</div>
With 61 lives lost and 103 cases confirmed in the new Ebola outbreak, we find out how health officials in the Democratic Republic of Congo are working to curtail the deadly virus with Niniola Soleye, Managing Director of the Doctor Ameyo Stella Adadevoh Health Trust.

DRC’s fight against the spread of the Ebola virus

<div style="display: block; position: relative; max-width: 730px;">
<div style="padding-top: 56.25%;"><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100%; position: absolute; top: 0px; bottom: 0px; right: 0px; left: 0px;" src="//players.brightcove.net/1571595826001/default_default/index.html?videoId=5821964464001" allowfullscreen="" border=0 frameborder=0></iframe></div>
</div>
Moving a step further from the use of experimental vaccines, the Democratic Republic of Congo has started using an experimental Ebola treatment on patients, the first ever deployed against an active outbreak. Francis Ohanyido, Chair of the Board of Directors of the West African Academy of Public Health joins CNBC Africa to discuss this.

DRC readies to deploy 1st ever new Ebola treatment drug

KINSHASA (Reuters) &#8211; Congo’s President Joseph Kabila will not stand in the election scheduled for December, a spokesman said, finally agreeing to obey a two-term limit but picking a hard-core loyalist under European Union sanctions to stand instead.
The announcement on Wednesday by spokesman Lambert Mende that former interior minister Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary would represent Kabila’s ruling coalition in the Dec. 23 vote came just hours before the deadline to register candidates.
“We are all going to align behind (him),” Mende said.
Kabila was due to step down in 2016 at the end of his constitutional mandate, but the election to replace him was repeatedly delayed. That sparked protests in which the security forces killed dozens of people, and stoked militia violence in Democratic Republic of Congo’s volatile east.
Kabila had come under strong pressure from regional allies such as Angola as well as the United States and EU to stand down.
The selection of Ramazani, 57, is, however, a defiant move. He is under EU sanctions for alleged human rights abuses, including deadly crackdowns by security forces on protesters.
Kabila’s choice of a die-hard loyalist suggests that the president, who came to power after his father’s assassination in 2001, intends to remain closely involved in national politics. 
A Ramazani victory could lead to a continuation of Kabila’s policies, including a tough line on the mining sector, where foreign investors hope the government will walk back steep tax hikes approved earlier this year.
Congo is Africa’s top producer of copper and the world’s leading miner of cobalt, which is prized for its use in batteries for electric cars and other electronics.
KABILA PULLS THE STRINGS? 
Kabila will remain at the head of his People’s Party for Reconstruction and Democracy (PPRD) and has installed loyalists across the federal bureaucracy, including in the courts and in the military.
But the announcement that he will not run again will ease fears in the region and beyond that a Kabila candidacy would drag the country back into the civil wars of the turn of the century in which millions died, mostly from hunger and disease.
“What matters for the moment is that the constitution, whether willingly or not, has been respected,” said Senator Jacques Ndjoli of the opposition MLC party of former vice president and presidential candidate Jean-Pierre Bemba.
“Despite the multiple attempts to circumvent the constitution, President Kabila finally understood that the supreme law applies to everyone.”
The election should now herald Congo’s first democratic transition of power following decades marked by authoritarian rule, coups and deadly conflict.
Ramazani, a former governor of the eastern province of Maniema, served as interior minister from late 2016 until this February, when he was named permanent secretary of the PPRD.
He is a combative defender of Kabila and oversaw repeated crackdowns on protesters and pro-democracy groups as interior minister, especially in the aftermath of Kabila’s refusal to quit power when his mandate expired in December 2016.
In May last year, the EU slapped a travel ban and asset freeze on him for his involvement in “planning, directing or committing acts that constitute serious human rights violations”.
Several opposition candidates, including Bemba and the president of Congo’s largest opposition party, Felix Tshisekedi, have also registered to run.
They fear the goodwill Kabila could earn from not seeking a new term could make it easier for his coalition to cheat and are concerned about voter rolls they say are faulty and electronic voting machines due to be used for the first time.
His supporters dismiss these concerns.
“Today, Kabila has shown that he is the father of democracy in Congo,” Patrick Nkanga, a PPRD official, told Reuters by telephone.
A nationwide opinion poll last month showed opposition candidates collecting a significant majority of the vote with potential candidates from the ruling coalition trailing far behind.
Ramazani did not receive enough votes to be included in the poll’s results.
Reporting by Amedee Mwarabu; Writing by Aaron Ross; Editing by Tim Cocks and Alison Williams
Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

DRC’s Kabila will not run in December elections, here’s what you need to know

So that is it then. There’ll be a summit on July 7, followed by a few last minute tweaks, then, the South African government will have fulfilled its obligations to the people for the next five years. For the country’s hard pressed mining houses the hard work will have only just begun.
The third version of the Mining Charter – a voluntary agreement between state and industry to promote black ownership – is a well-meaning document that seeks long stability by giving the majority a stake in one of Africa’s most lucrative industries. In a nutshell it promises to increase black ownership from 26% to 30%; give a slice of mining right ownership to communities living with the dust of the mines and the workers who dig them. All has to be complete in five years.
The Mining Charter plans to transform the image of the industry for so long seen as an exploitative colonial operation where poorly paid black workers risk their neck deep underground for the wealth that Johannesburg was built on. It will not only benefit the workers, but also ensure that 50% of all mining boards are black so change has a chance to trickle down from the top.
<iframe loading="lazy" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gGylb3-HZQ4" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
In many ways this document is a compromise. It fights shy of the 51% black ownership beloved of many other independent African countries further north. It also concedes to the “once empowered, always empowered” principle that the mining companies have fought for. This means that previous transactions on the way to 26% will be recognised even if the black shareholder sells his stake back into white hands at the end of the lock in period.
Yet mining companies are going to find it very difficult and expensive to comply with all of the above in five years at a time when the mines are struggling against rising costs and falling productivity. The empowerment transactions will carry a heavy cost.
Foreign investors are likely to look at the new mining regulations with caution. Capital is coward and it will always go where there is least risk. Long-term stability and righting the wrongs of the past ring hollow to the investors of New York and Moscow who merely want to do business. They just want to do business as quickly and cheaply as they can. If they can’t navigate the mining codes of South Africa they are likely to look elsewhere. Spending on capital projects in South Africa have been falling for the last five years.
&nbsp;
&#8220;We hope the changes from the summit will not be too massive,&#8221; the new mining minister Gwede Mantashe said on the release of the new regulations in Pretoria.
&#8220;This amended mining charter will bring no new investment, nor jobs, to the industry in South Africa,&#8221; says Peter Major, a mining analyst with Cadiz Corporate Solutions in Cape Town.
&#8220;If this goes ahead South Africa risks becoming like struggling mining nations like the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia and Zimbabwe for the next 30 years.&#8221;
Food for thought ahead of the last minute changes on July 7.

Op:Ed: SA’s new Mining Charter too radical or good for investment?

By AfDB Vice President for Energy , Amadou Hott
With the lowest power consumption per capita in the world, sub-Saharan Africa is arguably the darkest section of the global village with investments, social and economic growth and jobs creation hobbled by frequent outages, load shedding and total black outs. Over 645 million Africans lack access to electricity.
Yet the continent is rich in energy resources, with well over 10 terawatts of solar potential, 350 gigawatts of hydroelectric potential, 110 gigawatts of wind potential, and an additional 15 gigawatts of geothermal potential. All of these is outside Africa’s huge reserves of coal and gas, which can provide some of the continent’s cheapest electricity.
Surrounded by energy wealth, most Africans still wonder why their countries are so power poor. From the comfort of their friend’s home in the Kingdom of Lesotho, Augustine and his wife Anna, usually spend their evenings staring at the vast Katse dam, the highest dam in Africa, located on the Malibamatso River. They marvel at the evidence of what Mankind can achieve. Lesotho sells billions of litres of the “White Gold” from this dam to neighboring South Africa; the dam also pumps 72 Megawatts of electricity into the national grid.
Completed in 2009, the Katse dam’s imposing 132 KV transmission towers and lines that connect to the grid disappear into the horizon, beyond the towering Maluti mountains that have stood firm for at least 200 million years. Augustine is however moody, most of the time. Saddened by the fact that many of his compatriots still do not have access to electricity, several of their vital social and commercial needs remain unmet due to lack of electricity.
This scenario is Africa-wide. The lack of access to electricity cuts off the vital wants of society. Clearly, children underperform for lack of electricity as schools and homes lack electricity and lives are at risk at hospitals across the continent, as lifesaving equipment lie comatose, unable to be deployed for the purposes they were purchased and installed for.
For these reasons and more, Anna and Augustine are hoping that Africa’s business and political leaders will put Africa’s industrialization and energy drive at the top of their agenda during the 53rd annual meetings of the African Development Bank in the coastal city of Busan, South Korea in May 2018. Thankfully, this year’s annual meeting’s theme is “Accelerate Africa’s Industrialisation”.
Korea holds interesting memories for Augustine. The happiest moments of his life were in May 2002. That was the month his home was connected to the distribution network with a pre-payment meter and this happened just before the commencement of the 2002 FIFA World Cup jointly hosted by Japan and South Korea. The electricity meters and lines connected to Augustine’s community were courtesy of a US$36 million Utilities Sector Reform Project, financed by the African Development Bank, the World Bank and the European Union.
Augustine worked with the project team as a driver. He witnessed the evolution of the project between 2000 and 2007, driving engineers and project managers around his mountainous country and parts of South Africa. The smiles of tens of thousands of new electricity customers are permanently etched in his memory:  from deep rural cross-border pilot electrification projects in Dili-Dili (where it was cheaper to be connected from South Africa) to the Letseng diamond mine (renowned for its large stones) and an ultra-modern ski resort in Mokhotlong (frequented by rich tourists); and to Semonkong village (which has the highest waterfall in Africa) and is supplied by a 2MW mini-hydro power plant run by the national utility company.
They recall the problems folks in Lesotho faced in 2008, when Eskom (the South African utility, that has over 40, 000 MWs installed capacity) unexpectedly restricted supplies to the Lesotho Electricity Corporation (LEC, a 100 MW customer). This led to load-shedding and increased costs.  However, LEC was able to buy power, from as far away as Mozambique, thanks to a functioning electricity market under the Southern African Power Pool (SAPP). Mozambique also has the Mozal aluminum smelter plant, which commenced operations in 2000 and produces over 500, 000 tonnes per year for export, and recently for the local downstream industry. Mozal is the largest industrial employer in Mozambique.
Similarly, Zambia, Botswana and the Democratic Republic of Congo also have huge copper reserves that can be refined locally and used for electrical cables and equipment to drive the transition to green power in the SAPP and the rest of Africa.
Augustine recently heard on the news that Eskom currently has excess capacity, which it is planning to export to its neighbours.  Eskom is also the sole off-taker for over $19 billion of investments under a 2013-2018 globally acclaimed Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer (REIPP) auction programme. This is driving industrialization and will accelerate South Africa’s transition to green growth.
The African Development Bank, as one of the lead financiers in South Africa, providing over $2 Billion to the power sector, is working with other development partners to replicate this success across Africa. This is underpinned by the Bank’s performance in 2017 –  when it approved 31 energy projects in 23 countries, totaling $1.4 Billion.
In the same fiscal period, the Bank’s private sector investments rose by 40% to $400 million, with 100% renewable generation projects, including base-load hydro and solar generation projects in Morocco and Côte d’Ivoire, and key cross-border transmission interconnectors in the West and Central African Power Pool networks. These networks will facilitate the establishment of regional power markets, reduce carbon footprint and accelerate industrialization through the conversion of the region’s vast natural resources like the conversion of bauxite to aluminum, iron ore to steel and gas to fertilizers, and processing of rice, cocoa, fruits and vegetables.
Female entrepreneurs like Anna abound across Africa. Anna remembers how access to electricity enabled her to quit working long hours at one of the huge Taiwanese-owned textile factories in Maseru. That was when she took the bold step to become an entrepreneur. Things are looking up for Anna and her household. This winter will be nice and warm. Their home overlooking the dam now has a solar water heater and a Solar Home System. The authorities will soon replace their old pre-paid meters with smart meters and they will certainly not miss watching any of their favorite matches at this year’s FIFA World Cup in Russia.
After the World Cup, Augustine will have to go see his old friends in high places. He has also heard the rumours and needs to go confirm things for himself. He’s heard through the local grapevine that further industrialization of his community and country is in the offing. Investors are looking for local partners to co-invest and work on a plethora of projects: a 50 MW wind, 20 MW solar and a 500 &#8211; 1000 MW hydro power projects, in Mafeteng. The projects have been initiated by the Bank’s Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa grant). He needs to know how communities and SMEs like him can align with the unfolding positive realities of modern industrialization.

Africa is rich in energy resources but power poor, how the AfDB is working to change this

<div style="display: block; position: relative; max-width: 730px;">
<div style="padding-top: 56.25%;"><iframe loading="lazy" style="width: 100%; height: 100%; position: absolute; top: 0px; bottom: 0px; right: 0px; left: 0px;" src="//players.brightcove.net/1571595826001/default_default/index.html?videoId=5788118056001" width="300" height="150" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></div>
</div>
Nahid Bhadelia, Medical director, special pathogens unit, Boston University Medical Center joins CNBC Africa to give an update on vaccination deployment, and challenges to treating and containing an Ebola outbreak.

Health expert speaks on challenges of containing Ebola virus

By Aaron Ross
DAKAR, May 22 (Reuters) &#8211; In 2014, Democratic Republic of Congo officials trumpeted the launch of a sweeping initiative they said would solve food shortages in one of the world’s poorest countries.
The plan: to transform land covering more than 17,900 square kilometres of the central African nation &#8211; more than half the landmass of former colonial master Belgium &#8211; into use for industrial-scale agriculture to boost food production.
That summer, President Joseph Kabila inaugurated an 800-square-kilometre plot in western Congo called Bukanga Lonzo, the first of 22 planned projects across the country to produce everything from maize to sunflowers to poultry.
Three years later, the pilot had collapsed. Activity on site ground to a halt after the South African company brought in as a co-investor and to manage the park left, saying it hadn’t been paid by the Congolese government in nearly a year.
With more than 60 percent of the world’s unexploited arable land but struggling to feed its surging population, Africa has become the latest laboratory for governments, development agencies and researchers trying to lead a new green revolution.
But experiments like Bukanga Lonzo serve as cautionary tales for those in search of quick fixes, showing how weak investor interest, poor infrastructure and byzantine land regulations can stymie Africa’s agricultural potential.
These days, police guard the park entrance, where a billboard partially obscured by overgrown grass still displays the insignia of a hand cupping a stalk of wheat.
Congolese officials acknowledge the project’s collapse but express hope the pilot, and the broader initiative, can be revived.
In an interview, Congo’s economy minister Joseph Kapika said that Bukanga Lonzo “completely failed.” The minister blamed the South African company that had managed the park and said it had left “in bad faith.” He added that the government plans to re-launch the park with a focus on livestock.
The company, Africom Commodities Pty Ltd, disputes Kapika’s claims about what went wrong. Africom’s chief executive, Christo Grobler, said the problem was high costs and an unreliable government partner that would change its mind from day to day about the project’s direction. He said the company had incurred more than $50 million in losses at Bukanga Lonzo.
The company said it and the government spent more than $250 million combined on the project plus a related market and fertilizer factory but the park had produced at most 15,000 tonnes of maize in total &#8211; a fraction of the 350,000 tonnes annually forecasted by next year in marketing material.
The economy minister, in the interview, declined to comment on the cost of the project. Congo’s agriculture ministry declined to comment. The portfolio minister, who oversees state contracts, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Park officials declined to be interviewed or grant Reuters access to the site. Kabila’s deputy chief of staff did not respond to a request for comment.
<h3>LIMITED SUCCESS</h3>
With a food-import deficit running into the tens of billions of dollars and a spiraling numbers of undernourished inhabitants, Africa is casting about for ways to boost agricultural productivity.
Some countries, including Nigeria and Tanzania, have turned to agro-industrial parks — concentrations of large farms, processing factories and related infrastructure – modeled after similar sites in India, Brazil and Vietnam.
But efforts in Africa so far have met limited success, according to a 2017 report by the United Nations.
Some specialists in agricultural innovation say industrial-scale farming can work but the approach in Africa is often flawed. “No one’s figured out the model that can make this work at sufficient scale,” said Patrick Guyver, who has consulted on agriculture projects across Africa.
The African Development Bank is nevertheless accelerating a push for projects such as Bukanga Lonzo, for which it provided about $1 million to finance a feasibility study.
The bank said it committed last year to 101 million euros for an Ivory Coast project and that it is due this year to consider funding for three others. It held a conference in Tunis in February to discuss new projects in Ethiopia, Togo, Mozambique, and elsewhere.
African Development Bank spokesman Chawki Chahed, in emailed responses to questions, said Bukanga Lonzo had not failed and could still be resurrected. He added that in general such projects “are complex and so their development and design are gradual.”
He said the Bank plans to spend $2.2 million on feasibility studies for three more agro-industrial parks planned in central and southeastern Congo, without specifying when the studies would begin.
<h3>“PEOPLE ARE STARVING”</h3>
A key proponent of Congo’s plan was John Ulimwengu, an advocate of industrial-scale agriculture in Africa and a fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington D.C.
In 2013, Ulimwengu was advising Congo’s then-Prime Minister Augustin Matata Ponyo and pushed for a pilot project to produce food for export and domestic consumption, according to Ulimwengu and other officials involved in the project.
Some people urged the government to do further research before embarking on the Bukango Lonzo initiative. That included Calestous Juma, a professor of farming innovation at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., whom Ulimwengu briefed on the project in a January 2014 meeting, both men told Reuters. Juma has since passed away.
The prime minister insisted on moving more quickly, according to Ulimwengu. “I remember the prime minister telling us, ‘I am a politician. I made some promises to the population. While we are doing this, people are dying, people are starving,’” Ulimwengu said.
Gloria Mangoni, who worked in the prime minister’s office at the time, also said they were under pressure to produce results quickly and that political considerations sometimes prevailed over economic ones.
Matata, who was replaced as prime minister in late 2016, did not respond to a request for comment. In a recent speech, he blamed Bukanga Lonzo’s problems on the site’s poor soil quality.
Ulimwengu said he continues to support the agro-industrial approach and lays most of the blame for Bukanga Lonzo’s difficulties on political instability in Congo that has scared off investors.
<h3>RED FLAGS</h3>
In early 2014, the Congolese government signed a five-year contract with Africom, whose subsidiary was partnering with the government on a fertilizer factory in southwestern Congo.
The government invested a total of $161.2 million in Bukanga Lonzo as well as a market in Kinshasa intended to sell the produce and the fertilizer factor, according to Africom. Africom said it invested $91.3 million in those projects.
The following year, in 2015, audit firm Ernst &amp; Young raised red flags in a report commissioned by the finance ministry. Ernst &amp; Young said prices the park paid for equipment from Africom’s sister companies were “excessively higher” than those offered by competitors and that promised infrastructure had not materialised, according to the report.
In a response to Ernst &amp; Young reviewed by Reuters, Africom said the audit firm failed to account for the high costs of providing warrantees and spare parts in Congo and also misunderstood the nature of some of the promised work.
Ernst &amp; Young declined to comment.
In early 2016, the government fell behind on its monthly $4.8 million payments to Africom to manage the park as low prices for Congo’s main exports copper and cobalt ate into public finances, said Grobler, Africom’s CEO.
After September of that year, the government stopped paying Africom altogether, he added. (Additional reporting by Patient Ligodi; Editing by Cassell Bryan-Low)

Why the DRC’s plan to solve food shortages failed

<div style="display: block; position: relative; max-width: 730px;">
<div style="padding-top: 56.25%;"><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100%; position: absolute; top: 0px; bottom: 0px; right: 0px; left: 0px;" src="//players.brightcove.net/1571595826001/default_default/index.html?videoId=5782925577001" allowfullscreen="" border=0 frameborder=0></iframe></div>
</div>
17 people have been confirmed dead as a result of a new Ebola outbreak in the north western region of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

New outbreak of Ebola kills 17 in Democratic Republic of Congo

By <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/kealeboga-j-maphunye-171061">Kealeboga J Maphunye</a>, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-south-africa-1951">University of South Africa</a>
Some African countries have recorded democratic victories in the past 12 months. Ethiopia has a <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-ethiopias-new-leader-could-be-a-game-changer-94424">new leader</a> whose ascent holds great promise for change, despite the country’s <a href="https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/article/ethiopia-100-election">problematic 2015 election</a>. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/30/liberia-george-weah-salary-change-constitution-racism">Liberia</a> and <a href="https://www.news24.com/Africa/News/sierra-leones-new-leader-bio-starts-work-as-president-20180405">Sierra Leone</a> have new leaders.
But elsewhere on the continent, leaders continue to disregard their countries’ own constitutions and laws governing presidential tenure. The Democratic Republic of Congo’s Joseph Kabila has been in power <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/07/joseph-kabila-will-not-stand-in-next-drc-elections-aide-says">since 2001</a>. He refuses to go even though he was meant to step down in December 2016. In Uganda, Yoweri Museveni has clung to power since <a href="http://www.africareview.com/news/UG-lawmakers-pave-the-way-for-Museveni-stay-in-power/979180-4093204-ug1sqi/index.html">1986</a>. Denis Sassou Nguesso has ruled Congo for <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-14121193">almost 30 years</a>.
Their refusal to step down at the appointed time flies in the face of several governance blueprints adopted as African countries shifted away from liberation politics to the new post independence <a href="https://theconversation.com/democracy-in-africa-the-ebbs-and-flows-over-six-decades-42011">struggle for democracy</a> in the early 2000s.
The <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/organisation-african-unity-formed-and-africa-day-declared">Organisation of African Unity</a> was transformed into the <a href="https://au.int/">African Union</a> in 2001 with this shift in mind. The continent adopted progressive governance tools like the <a href="https://au.int/en/organs/aprm">African Peer Review Mechanism</a>. This was spearheaded by former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and South Africa’s Thabo Mbeki as a tool for African countries to review one another’s performance.
Numerous African countries adopted and agreed to uphold the terms of the African Union Charter on Democracy, <a href="https://au.int/sites/default/files/treaties/7790-treaty-0034_-_african_charter_on_democracy_elections_and_governance_e.pdf">Elections and Governance</a>. It came into force in 2012 and was designed to guard against undemocratic governance.
These plans promised a great deal. They were designed to usher in good governance, democracy and security. It was hoped Africa’s image as a continent of ignorance, poverty, disease, misrule and corruption could be erased.
The rhetoric pointed in the right direction. But not all African leaders were willing to be swept by this wave of democratic reforms. Some are quite simply addicted to power, as shown by their reluctance – if not outright resistance – to leave at the end of their legal terms.
Leaders continuing to overstay their welcome undermines Africa’s attempts at overhauling its leadership and negates the noble intentions of the AU’s founders.
<h2>Term limits</h2>
Term limits regulate leadership succession. They are meant to counteract leaders’ temptation to overstay their welcome. This helps to consolidate and legitimise democratically elected leadership.
Of course, they’re not enough. Regular transfer of power as seen in countries like Mauritius, Ghana, Botswana and Zambia, among others, cannot guarantee political and socio-economic stability. Other ingredients such as accountable, legitimate leadership are critical.
The benefits of frequent power transfers are evident in African countries that have them, such as <a href="https://www.news24.com/Africa/News/electoral-commission-confirms-senegal-ruling-coalition-landslide-20170805-2">Senegal</a>; <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-botswana-politics/botswanas-khama-steps-down-as-president-after-a-decade-at-helm-idUSKBN1H70DO">Botswana</a> and <a href="https://guardian.ng/news/mauritius-gets-new-pm-opposition-demands-new-election/">Mauritius</a>. Incumbents are kept on their toes because there’s a real chance they can be removed from power if they fail to govern properly.But regular transfers of power give citizens hope that new policies, programmes and approaches will be adopted by the new leadership. In turn, this could overturn numerous political, social, economic impacts of uninterrupted strangleholds on power in Africa.
Term limits have recently become controversial and divisive. Some leaders have used dubious constitutional amendments to extend their stay in power. Usually, governing parties and their leaders almost exclusively pass such amendments with minimal or no opposition participation. That’s what happened in Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi and Congo Republic.
Similarly, despite constitutional provisions and regular elections, countries such as Angola, Togo, Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea are virtually de facto one party or one leader repressive states wherein resignation, retirement and term limits are meaningless.
Leaders have different reasons for refusing to leave office. In some countries, the answer lies in a lack of succession planning to transfer power. In others, leaders blatantly refuse to resign because of their despotic and kleptocratic tendencies. They abuse their states’ minerals, oil and money with their <a href="https://issafrica.org/iss-today/african-leaders-take-the-blame-for-the-continents-resource-curse">families and friends</a>. Stepping aside would cost them these “benefits”.
For instance, the eventual departure of Angola’s Eduardo Dos Santos from office after decades in power has <a href="https://theconversation.com/stability-in-southern-africa-hinges-on-how-leaders-gain-and-lose-power-89980">left his family exposed</a>. His children stand accused of amassing billions during their father’s many terms.
Without strong constitutional safeguards and a democratic culture to counter the negative consequences of the <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2012-04-13-anc-must-renew-itself-and-root-out-sins-of-incumbency">“sins of incumbency”</a> – as corruption associated with state power is often described by South Africa’s governing party, the African National Congress – can be menacing. It breeds <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Big-Men-Little-People-Leaders/dp/081477542X">“Big Men, Little People”</a>, to borrow a phrase from the title of a book by journalist Alec Russel.
<h2>Weaning leaders off power addiction</h2>
Perceptive leaders know when to leave office, whether through resignation or <a href="http://www.africanews.com/2018/03/31/botswana-president-ian-khama-steps-down-after-end-of-tenure//">retirement</a>. Botswana’s past and current presidents have established this practice despite the country’s continued <a href="http://www.thepatriot.co.bw/analysis-opinions/item/3585-single-party-dominance-not-good-for-democracy.html">one-party domination</a>.
With the emergence of a strong democratic culture, South Africa has experienced the opposite of such presidential power mongering. Two presidents were recalled by their political party the ANC, albeit for different reasons. Thabo Mbeki readily <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2008-09-21-mbeki-resigns-before-the-nation">accepted his fate</a> when he was told to pack up and go, although he was not accused of any specific wrong doing. Jacob Zuma remained defiant and only stepped aside when faced with the very real prospect of a vote of <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2018-02-13-anc-want-motion-of-no-confidence-against-zuma">no-confidence</a>.
<a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/01/nana-akufo-addo-sworn-ghana-president-170107124239549.html">Ghana</a>, <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-37086365">Zambia</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/namibia-grown-up-after-a-generation-into-independence-but-not-yet-mature-74571">Namibia</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/buharis-victory-in-nigerian-election-has-global-significance-39416">Nigeria</a>, <a href="https://www.constitutionnet.org/news/presidential-elections-malawi-towards-majoritarian-501-electoral-system">Malawi</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/magufuli-has-been-president-for-two-years-how-hes-changing-tanzania-86777">Tanzania</a> are other African states where regular transfer of power has occurred.
African voters are not blameless. They habitually relax their vigilance on leaders and fail to hold them to account after elections. This, coupled with winner-take-all election systems, renders some African countries vulnerable to autocratic, despotic and non-accountable leaders who would rather die in office than leave.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/94196/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />What, then, is the solution? It may be time for ordinary voters across the continent to begin to collaborate through non-governmental organisations and other cross-border institutional mechanisms to share experiences and begin to enforce durable continental democracy. Africa needs democracy from below.
<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/kealeboga-j-maphunye-171061">Kealeboga J Maphunye</a>, Professor, Department of Political Sciences, University of South Africa (UNISA), <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-south-africa-1951">University of South Africa</a>
This article was originally published on <a href="http://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a>. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/weaning-african-leaders-off-addiction-to-power-is-an-ongoing-struggle-94196">original article</a>.

Why it’s impossible to wean African leaders off their addiction to power

By <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/nadine-ansorg-301061">Nadine Ansorg</a>, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-kent-1248">University of Kent</a>
<a href="http://www.dw.com/en/humanitarian-crisis-deepens-in-dr-congo-as-president-kabila-clings-to-power/a-43126071">After many months of upheaval</a>, the Democratic Republic of Congo is set for yet another year of political struggle and internal conflict. Current President Joseph Kabila remains the main cause of the unrest. He reached the <a href="http://www.rfi.fr/afrique/20161222-fin-mandat-kabila-contestation-essouffle-rdc-cenco-afrique-sud">end of his final term in December 2016</a> yet refuses to step down. His government continues to find <a href="http://www.france24.com/en/20180126-jump-void-dr-congo-president-kabila-delayed-elections">reasons to delay elections</a> which ought to have been held shortly after the conclusion of Kabila’s term.
The latest election date has been set for <a href="https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-congo-politics/congo-sets-presidential-election-for-december-2018-idUKKBN1D50YC">December 2018</a>, although it is doubtful that the government will hold the poll. It has already pointed to apparent <a href="https://www.hrw.org/blog-feed/democratic-republic-congo-crisis">logistical and financial obstacles</a> to a December election. This has become an ongoing excuse to keep Kabila in power.
Meanwhile, DRC citizens are increasingly unsatisfied with the government. They have <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/01/drc-protesters-killed-anti-kabila-protests-180121105558348.html">repeatedly taken to the streets</a> of the capital city Kinshasa to call for elections and Kabila’s resignation. Security forces continue to <a href="http://www.france24.com/fr/20171231-rdc-congo-messe-kinshasa-tir-gaz-lacrymogene-marche-interdite-kabila-opposition">quell those protests</a> and crack down on political activists. State operatives have on several occasions <a href="https://qz.com/1187727/the-dr-congo-is-using-a-decades-old-law-to-shut-down-the-internet/">shut down the internet</a>.
<h2>How to end the crisis</h2>
There’s also continuing <a href="https://www.irinnews.org/in-depth/crumbling-congo-making-humanitarian-emergency">violence</a> in other parts of the country including North Kivu and Kasai. The people here have suffered tremendously, sometimes at the hands of their own <a href="https://afrique.lalibre.be/12455/rdc-massacres-au-kasai-crimes-contre-lhumanite-pour-un-chaos-organise/">government forces</a>.
The United Nations peacekeeping force, which is currently the <a href="https://theglobalobservatory.org/2017/07/monusco-drc-peacekeeping-budget-cuts/">largest in the world</a>, has been unable to stabilise the country. As a result, more than 4.5 million people have been internally displaced and more than 3 million are <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/democratic-republic-of-congo-un-united-nations-world-food-programme-starvation-joseph-kabila-a8025976.html">at risk of starvation</a>.
Because the situation is so dire, the only way out might be another attempt at mediation. The highly influential Catholic Church of the DRC (Conférence Episcopale Nationale du Congo) <a href="https://www.infocatho.fr/tag/cenco/">attempted to mediate a deal</a> between Kabila and the opposition in 2016. It withdrew from its role as mediator in March 2017 after talks stalled. The church was pushing for what it called the <a href="https://africa.la-croix.com/rd-congo-laccord-de-saint-sylvestre/">Saint Sylvestre Political Agreement</a>. If this had been implemented the DRC would have held would have held elections before the end of 2017.
But the agreement could still form the basis of a more <a href="http://www.gmu.edu/programs/icar/ijps/vol8_1/Bercovitch.html">effective mediation strategy</a> to go hand in hand with increased political and economic pressure. Indeed, African leaders have steadily <a href="http://www.africanews.com/2018/02/26/botswana-tells-dr-congo-s-kabila-to-step-down//">increased their pressure on Kabila</a> to step down. As a consequence the prospects for elections have improved slightly. What is needed now is more concerted action and a renewed regional and international engagement to push for the end of Kabila’s political oppression, and for elections to be held.
This push should be coordinated by the African Union and the South African Development Community so that any future interventions would be homegrown. This approach would likely appease Kabila, who has been known to accuse the United Nations of <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-39503929">foreign interference</a>.
These diplomatic and political efforts should be accompanied by increased political and economic sanctions from the European Union, the United States and the United Nations. Top Congolese officials, including Kabila’s family, are already subject to <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/06/01/dr-congo-eu-us-sanction-top-officials">a number of sanctions</a>. But they remain the main beneficiaries of Congo’s vast mineral wealth.
Through a complex web of companies, Kabila and his cronies have managed to sidestep sanctions that target them individually. I would argue, then, that sanctions against those companies and their industries would send a much stronger message to the government.
When it comes to the election, the government needs to be open about the amount of funding that is needed for the electoral process. If further funding is required, international donors may have to step up their fundraising efforts.
And as the country heads towards a poll, attention should also be drawn to the DRC’s lively civil society and its potential to mobilise ordinary citizens. Grassroots initiatives can reflect the will of the people far better than the political elites in Kinshasa. Civil society organisations must also be involved in the preparation process for the elections as a means to check the political excesses of the Kabila regime.
<h2>Action for the sake of the people</h2>
The DRC’s troubles have largely been caused by the political class: on one hand a president who refuses to relinquish power, and on the other a divided opposition that has been unable to challenge the government. <a href="https://www.ceni.cd/partis_et_regroupements_politiques">With more than 400 political parties registered in the country</a>, the political landscape is highly fractured.
The political class continues to haggle over power at the expense of the Congolese people. It is well known that for the elite, the DRC’s vast mineral resources are more valuable than its citizens. Those resources are at the centre of the battle for political leadership. While the Kabila family, its cronies and a handful of multinational corporations benefit from the country’s natural wealth, millions of people go to bed hungry every night.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/94585/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />Kabila <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/20/drc-vast-business-network-of-president-who-wont-step-down-revealed">controls the country’s resources</a> and many suspect that the prospect of losing control over these industries might be the real reason for the delay in stepping down.
<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/nadine-ansorg-301061">Nadine Ansorg</a>, Lecturer in International Conflict Analysis, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-kent-1248">University of Kent</a>
This article was originally published on <a href="http://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a>. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-drc-is-still-in-crisis-but-there-is-a-way-out-94585">original article</a>.

The DRC is still in crisis but there’s a way out

By <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/cobus-van-staden-427271">Cobus van Staden</a>, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/south-african-institute-of-international-affairs-1795">South African Institute of International Affairs</a>
China’s decision to <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-11/china-ties-future-to-xi-as-congress-scraps-president-term-limits">suspend presidential term limits</a> is still reverberating around the world. The announcement, made after a vote by China’s parliament in March, prompted some commentators to draw comparisons with “<a href="https://www.cfr.org/blog/axing-term-limits-china-boon-africas-would-be-despots">third termism</a>” in Africa, when leaders flout democratic conventions to stay in power as long as possible.
These concerns certainly resonate on a continent where leaders like Joseph Kabila of the Democratic Republic of Congo, or Yoweri Museveni of Uganda are clinging to power. But there is also a wider question that must be asked: what does an extended tenure for Chinese incumbent Xi Jinping mean for Africa beyond the constitutional issue of term limits?
For the foreseeable future, Africa’s engagement with China will be shaped by Xi’s vision. This makes it important to unpack exactly what that vision is. That’s why the South African Institute of International Affairs – where I work and conduct research on China and Africa – has just published <a href="http://www.saiia.org.za/policy-briefings/china-era-xi-jinping-thought">a policy paper</a> identifying five key trends for Africa.
We did this by drawing on Xi’s own writings and public comments. The trends will open certain opportunities for Africa in its relationship with China, and close down others. It is important for the continent to take note of these trends because Xi’s extended tenure will arguably deepen their impact over the next decade.
<h2>1. Communist Party centrality</h2>
Dealing with China means dealing with the Communist Party of China (CPC). Xi rose to power by strengthening his control of the party and its control of the country. Throughout his writings he has emphasised that the CPC is key to Chinese decision-making from the local to the international level.
Part of the CPC’s strategy is to influence young Africans through education and training. To this end, thousands of African government officials, journalists and students receive training in China annually. In 2016, Beijing <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/africa-in-focus/2016/07/05/political-party-training-chinas-ideological-push-in-africa">increased the number of scholarships</a> for African junior politicians from 200 to 1000 per year.
More African students now study in China than in the <a href="https://qz.com/1017926/china-has-overtaken-the-us-and-uk-as-the-top-destination-for-anglophone-african-students/">US and the UK combined</a>. Xi routinely insists on the centrality of party doctrine in all university teaching. Since 2013 he has called for <a href="http://www.chinafile.com/document-9-chinafile-translation">the exclusion of so-called western ideas</a> from university curricula. Education and training shapes one’s worldview. As these African students return home, then, Communist Party doctrine will increasingly inform conversations on the continent.
<h2>2. The Belt and Road Initiative</h2>
President Xi’s long-term rule also ensures the future of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/where-africa-fits-into-chinas-massive-belt-and-road-initiative-78016">Belt and Road Initiative</a>. It is his signature foreign policy and investment initiative; a massive infrastructure project linking China overland to Europe via rail through Central Asia, and through sea routes to the Mediterranean and Europe via East Africa. It is already <a href="https://allafrica.com/stories/201803050166.html">funnelling large amounts of funding</a> to infrastructure projects in countries like Tanzania and Ethiopia.
Now that Xi has tightened his grip on power this initiative – which has been <a href="http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2017-10/24/c_136702025.htm">enshrined</a> in the CPC constitution – is here to stay.
This opens significant opportunities for African development. However, infrastructure doesn’t come for free: African countries should take a hard look at how the initiative will affect the continent’s debt sustainability and local priorities.
<h2>3. UN reform</h2>
China has been <a href="http://www.china.org.cn/english/international/131439.htm">a long-term supporter of reforming</a> the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to allow wider representation from the global south. Beijing has not forgotten that it gained its own UNSC seat partly through African countries’ votes. In his address at the 19th Party Congress, <a href="http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/download/Xi_Jinping's_report_at_19th_CPC_National_Congress.pdf">Xi voiced support for</a> “the efforts of other developing countries to increase their representation”.
In theory, this could initiate a discussion about Security Council reform. There is little further indication that China is actively campaigning for it, but it is an area to watch.
<h2>4. Global military role</h2>
President Xi has repeatedly called for China’s military hardware, and the Chinese army’s combat-readiness <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/04/xi-jinping-tells-army-not-to-fear-death-in-show-of-chinas-military-might">to be boosted</a>. His extended term raises the possibility that the People’s Liberation Army will pursue a more prominent global role.
<a href="http://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/china-raises-2018-defence-spending-by-81-per-cent">Military budgets for 2018</a> have been raised by 8.1%, a three-year high. While China is still far behind the United States in total military spending, it is catching up.
This expansion directly affects Africa. China’s first overseas military base recently became operational in Djibouti, despite <a href="https://qz.com/1226148/rex-tillerson-in-africa-chinas-increasing-footprint-in-djibouti-worries-us-camp-lemonnier/">complaints from the United States</a>, whose Camp Lemonnier is mere kilometres away. <a href="http://allafrica.com/stories/201702160232.html">Djibouti also hosts</a> French, Japanese, Spanish, Italian, and German bases, and a Saudi base is under construction.
China has become <a href="http://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy-defence/article/2120754/chinese-troops-two-day-drill-prepare-peacekeeping">more involved in UN peacekeeping in Africa</a>. Its troops serve in South Sudan, Mali and Liberia, as well as in anti-piracy initiatives off Somalia. While these missions have contributed to African security, they also help to strengthen China’s profile as a global leader and to give Chinese troops valuable real-world combat training. This raises questions for Africa about an increasing Chinese military presence on the continent.
<h2>5. Internet governance</h2>
Xi’s first term has seen a significant tightening of China’s own internet regulations. The US NGO Freedom House now lists China’s internet as the <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2018/china">world’s most constrained</a>. Xi has called for further controls and for enhanced “internet sovereignty”: this shuns global internet governance conventions in favour of control by national governments.
There is little evidence that China is interested in exporting its internet governance to other countries. But some fear that <a href="http://www.saiia.org.za/occasional-papers/1292-balancing-cyber-security-and-internet-freedom-in-africa/file">repressive African governments will</a> seize on the theme of internet sovereignty to crack down on internal dissent.
<h2>Planning ahead</h2>
China is Africa’s top trade partner and a key foreign investor. Africa needs more local experts fluent in Mandarin, who can provide insights into the inner workings of this rising superpower.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/94602/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />Barring unexpected upheavals, Xi Jinping is set to govern for a long time. Africa had better plan accordingly.
<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/cobus-van-staden-427271">Cobus van Staden</a>, Senior Researcher: China Africa, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/south-african-institute-of-international-affairs-1795">South African Institute of International Affairs</a>
This article was originally published on <a href="http://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a>. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-chinas-president-xis-extended-tenure-means-for-africa-94602">original article</a>.

Democratic Republic of Congo

DRC elections: Opposition leader Tshisekedi clinches surprise win in presidential election, here’s what happens next

DRC elections: Downpours,no internet drudgery and a fisherman’s find on the way to a Mandela- inspired tomorrow?

Update DRC elections: Opposition, ruling coalition both say they’ve won, here’s why

DRC elections: After three postponements, voting takes place, this is the outcome so far…

DRC’s best known political cartoonist: Making light of grim realities shares his election hopes

DRC top court deems opposition leader Bemba ineligible to run in election boosting Shadary’s chances

DRC’s fight against the spread of the Ebola virus

DRC readies to deploy 1st ever new Ebola treatment drug

DRC’s Kabila will not run in December elections, here’s what you need to know

Op:Ed: SA’s new Mining Charter too radical or good for investment?

Africa is rich in energy resources but power poor, how the AfDB is working to change this

Health expert speaks on challenges of containing Ebola virus

Why the DRC’s plan to solve food shortages failed

New outbreak of Ebola kills 17 in Democratic Republic of Congo

Why it’s impossible to wean African leaders off their addiction to power

The DRC is still in crisis but there’s a way out

What China’s President Xi’s extended tenure means for Africa

News Tips

Advertise With Us

Democratic Republic of Congo

DRC elections: Opposition leader Tshisekedi clinches surprise win in presidential election, here’s what happens next

DRC elections: Downpours,no internet drudgery and a fisherman’s find on the way to a Mandela- inspired tomorrow?

Update DRC elections: Opposition, ruling coalition both say they’ve won, here’s why

DRC elections: After three postponements, voting takes place, this is the outcome so far…

DRC’s best known political cartoonist: Making light of grim realities shares his election hopes

DRC top court deems opposition leader Bemba ineligible to run in election boosting Shadary’s chances

DRC’s fight against the spread of the Ebola virus

DRC readies to deploy 1st ever new Ebola treatment drug

DRC’s Kabila will not run in December elections, here’s what you need to know

Op:Ed: SA’s new Mining Charter too radical or good for investment?

Africa is rich in energy resources but power poor, how the AfDB is working to change this

Health expert speaks on challenges of containing Ebola virus

Why the DRC’s plan to solve food shortages failed

New outbreak of Ebola kills 17 in Democratic Republic of Congo

Why it’s impossible to wean African leaders off their addiction to power

The DRC is still in crisis but there’s a way out

What China’s President Xi’s extended tenure means for Africa

News Tips

Advertise With Us

Newsletters