By Francois Conradie, Head of Research, NKC African Economics﻿



On Sunday, December 23, Congolese vote in a set of elections that have been delayed for two years and have been one of the most important drivers of political risk in the country for the last three. 



Three elections will be held on the same day: legislative, in which voters will elect the lower chamber of Parliament (National Assembly); provincial to pick the governments of the DRC’s 25 provinces (provincial governments elect the upper house of Parliament, the Senate); and presidential. The presidential election is by far the most important.



There are three main contenders in the presidential election: Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary of the Common Front for the Congo (FCC), Martin Fayulu of the Lamuka coalition, and Etienne Tshisekedi of the Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS). 



The FCC is a new umbrella party created by President Joseph Kabila which includes his People’s Party for Reconstruction and Development (PPRD) and the wider Presidential Majority (MP) of which the PPRD is part. It is a formidable machine, and we see Mr Shadary as the very firm favourite to win. 



Mr Fayulu has the backing of two other serious opposition heavyweights who have been prevented from running for the presidency, Jean-Pierre Bemba and Moise Katumbi, but no longer has the mandate to represent the wider opposition because of the actions of Mr Tshisekedi, the third man in the race, who reneged on a deal made in Geneva in November to back a single opposition candidate. 



Mr Tshisekedi then made a deal with Vital Kamerhe, who also broke his commitment to the Geneva deal, to run as a team. In the pact Mr Kamerhe and his Union for the Congolese Nation (UNC) will call on their supporters to vote for Mr Tshisekedi in the election and in return, should he win, Mr Tshisekedi will name Mr Kamerhe as his prime minister and has pledged to back a candidate from the UNC in the 2023 presidential election.



The split in the opposition, along with the advantages he enjoys as Mr Kabila’s chosen successor, means that we consider Mr Shadary virtually certain to win.But the government has not left the opposition to campaign in peace for all that. 



Opposition sources say at least seven people have lost their lives in violence since the start of the campaign but counting together all the individual claimed numbers gives a higher total. 



Most recently, on Wednesday, December 19, Mr Shadary cancelled a meeting in Tshikapa, in Kasai province, after people protested against his coming; one person was killed when soldiers, who came to support the police, opened fire on protesters. On Sunday, December 16, also in Tshikapa, there was a massive brawl between supporters of Mr Shadary and supporters of Mr Tshisekedi, who is popular in Kasai. One person died there, too, and as many as 80 were injured.The previous weekend, supporters of Mr Fayulu say they came under live fire from police in Lubumbashi; six people died. We expect more trouble at the weekend, and when results are announced.



Amessy polling process will tend to sharpen dissident energies, and there is every reason to expect a spectacular mess. With the best will in the world the election would have been a difficult operation to organise. 



The logistical challenges are considerable given the vast distances and the lack of functioning infrastructure in the DRC. There will be 80,000 polling stations and 20,000 collation centres, in a country twice the size of South Africa but which has only 3,500km of paved roads. And Congolese authorities do not have the best will in the world. 



The Independent National Electoral Centre (Ceni) is widely considered by the opposition and civil society (including the influential Catholic clergy) to be beholden to Mr Kabila, and so to be actively engineering a win for Mr Shadary. 



In the night of Wednesday, December 12, a fire destroyed almost 8,000 voting machines in a Ceni warehouse in Kinshasa. There has been speculation that the incident would result in a delay to the election, but the Ceni’s controversial chairman, Corneille Nangaa, has expressed his commitment to holding the election on time. 



FCC sources have accused Mr Fayulu of being behind the fire; he is opposed to the use of the Korean voting machines, such as those destroyed in the fire, as he(and many others) say they could be used to rig the vote.



Mr Shadary will win the election amid serious doubts about its legitimacy. Supporters of Mr Fayulu and Mr Tshisekedi will protest. Some of those protesting will be killed. Some images of the violence will make international news, but the result of the election will end up being accepted in the DRC, if not in Europe (where Mr Shadary is still under sanctions). 



The system that Mr Kabila has set up will remain in place, with some slight shifts as room is made for new players. Mr Kabila himself will remain a force in Congolese politics, probably as a senator, and may even become president again in 2023: there has been speculation that he plans to work around term limits in the same way as Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, by making room for a one-term puppet successor before coming back to power. 



However,overall risk is lower than it was a year ago, mainly because Mr Kabila is not running again, and we see the risk of war as lower than it was. 



But the authority vacuum resulting from Mr Kabila’s efforts to repress the opposition has resulted in an increase in militia violence in peripheral areas,and this kind of violence should be expected to continue.

DRC’s election outlook: Who has the edge?

By Francois Conradie, Head of Research at NKC African Economics
On Sunday, November 11, the last day of a three-day meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, the Congolese opposition picked a unity candidate for the presidential election on December 23: the choice fell on Martin Fayulu of the Engagement for Citizenship and Development (Ecidé).
This unusual unity lasted just under 24 hours.
Late at night on Monday, November 12, two key opposition members who had signed the deal changed their minds and pulled out of it, and are now expected to run against Mr Fayulu and against Emmanuel Ramzani Shadary, the candidate of President Joseph Kabila’s Common Front for Congo (FCC). The election is a one-round affair: the candidate who gets the most votes becomes president.
The opposition conference in Geneva was an interesting process, piloted by the Kofi Annan foundation. It brought together seven opposition figures: Mr Fayulu, a 61-year-old Lingala-speaker from Kinshasa, educated in France and the US, who entered politics in the last days of Mobutu Sese Seko’s rule after a career as an oil executive with ExxonMobil; Felix Tshisekedi of the Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS), whom we saw as the most likely man to lead a united opposition campaign; Jean-Pierre Bemba of the Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC), who looked like the most potent challenger but who was disqualified in August because of a conviction for witness-tampering at the International Criminal Court (ICC); Moise Katumbi, the popular and rich former governor of Katanga, who has not returned home since 2016, and who was thus unable to register for the election; Vital Kamerhe of the Union for the Congolese Nation (UNC), who is from South Kivu and is popular in the east of the country; Freddy Matungulu, a more marginal party leader who used to be an economist with the IMF; and Adolphe Muzito, who served as prime minister under Mr Kabila until 2012 and who was disqualified from running on a technical point.
The way the voting took place to choose a presidential candidate explains why Mr Fayulu ended up getting the nod rather than Mr Tshisekedi or Mr Kamerhe, who are more popular.
In the first round of voting the four men who had registered for the election (Messrs Fayulu, Matungulu, Tshisekedi and Kamerhe) could pick two names: their own, and that of one of their colleagues (also one allowed to run). As each man ended up giving the name of someone he did not consider a particularly menacing challenger to himself, Mr Fayulu and Mr Matungulu went through to a second round ahead of better-known peers. In the second round all seven opposition figures voted, and Mr Fayulu carried it.
On Sunday in Geneva, Mr Tshisekedi said: “I know this is going to be very tough for the UDPS base, but we accepted this game of nominating a common candidate and we must play it to the end.” And it was very tough for his base: protests were reported outside the UDPS offices in Kinshasa on Monday. The same happened in Mr Kamerhe’s UNC: its members also protested the fact that Mr Fayulu got the nod rather than their man.
On Monday Mr Tshisekedi announced that he was withdrawing his signature to respect the wishes of his voting base; tellingly he told Top Congo FM that going against his base would be the “end of my political career.” Very shortly afterwards Mr Kamerhe announced that he was also rejecting the deal on the basis that the opposition ought to have searched for consensus rather than use the two-round election system, even though he had agreed to it.
Mr Fayulu called on the two men to change their minds and asked the rhetorical question: “What signal are we sending? This shows that some of us are in politics out of personal interest, clan interests, and not for the higher interest of the nation.”
As of writing he still appeared to have the support of Mr Bemba and Mr Katumbi, which does count for a lot.
We had seen the way in which the seven opposition members put aside their differences to throw their collective weight behind Mr Fayulu as positive for the opposition, even though we continued to consider Mr Shadary the favourite, given the FCC’s dominance and the opportunity it will have to use government resources for party political ends: the Independent National Electoral Commission (Ceni) is certainly inclined to favour the FCC in the upcoming polls, and controversial electronic voting machines from Korea will make the election easier to rig.
Now we consider Mr Shadary’s win a foregone conclusion, as he will not only have the same structural advantages as he would have had facing Mr Fayulu as the unity candidate, but the opposition vote will probably be split among three men (we expect Mr Tshisekedi and Mr Kamerhe to run), making his job easier given the one-round system.
Congolese contacts have told us they are convinced that both men are in fact controlled opposition and playing Mr Kabila’s game; this is entirely plausible.
We still expect some protests in the next month, probably over the issue of voting machines, but the split in the opposition means that they will probably be smaller and less concentrated than could have been expected if Mr Fayulu had been the opposition candidate. This is positive from the point of view of violence, but FCC rule after Mr Shadary’s win will in no way be good news for governance.

OpEd: Fleeting moment of unity for DRC’s opposition

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

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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

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

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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/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

Democratic Republic of Congo will declare cobalt and coltan, used in electric vehicle and renewable energy technology, as “strategic” minerals which will earn the country higher royalties, an advisor to the prime minister said on Wednesday.
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A new mining code was signed into law on Friday by President Joseph Kabila despite vigorous opposition by global mining companies with operations in Congo such as Glencore, Randgold and China Molybdenum.
Royalties paid to the government from cobalt and coltan mining will jump to 10 percent from 2 percent previously. Miners of the two metals used in batteries, would have paid a royalty of 3.5 percent under the new code if they had not been designated as strategic.
The government considers minerals with the “strategic” designation important for the economic, social and industrial future of the country.
“We need to make enough money before we run out of these minerals so that is why they are strategic to the country,” said Jean Nkunza.
“We have to make sure for the next 20 years we make money from these minerals because demand is going to be so high. It’s going to continue to grow and we are not going to stop raising the royalties on these minerals.”
Other “strategic” minerals on the list include lithium and germanium, Nkunza said.
Congo is the world’s biggest source of cobalt, the price of which more than doubled last year. The central African country is also Africa’s top copper producer.
International mining companies have said the new mining code will deter foreign investment but have agreed to start negotiations with the government over measures to implement the code.
The announcement by the prime minister’s office, however, appears to pre-empt those negotiations, which were due to determine, among other things, how metals would be classified.
The code also removes a clause that protected miners from changes to the fiscal and customs regime for 10 years and raises royalties and taxes across the board.
Low commodity prices in recent years hit Congo’s resource-dependent economy hard, causing inflation to swell to nearly 50 percent in 2017, and the government is desperate to increase its revenues.
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Reporting by Zandi Shabalala; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle
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Cobalt to be declared a strategic mineral in Congo

Kristof Titeca and Albert Malukisa Nkuku | University of Antwerp
Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), is home to 10 million people. With an estimated 400 markets and over 1 million traders, markets are an important supplier of goods and source of livelihood. They are also an important source of revenue for the state.
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Our ongoing research found that markets are also a major source of private revenue. A wide variety of actors are in constant competition for their share of revenue. These include market administrators, mayors, security officials, provincial ministers, high ranking bureaucrats, family members of the President, Presidential advisors, family members of high ranking civil servants. All are fighting to get their piece of the market income.
On the markets, private revenue is being collected through what are locally called “informal taxes”. These aren’t entered into formal revenue streams, but are directly received by the civil servants and their superiors. A whole variety of those taxes are been collected on markets. They are referred to by a range of names, from ‘hygiene tax’, to ‘economy tax’, or ‘standard and conventional safety tax’.
On top of this our research also shows how the majority of the “formal” and officially acknowledged taxes aren’t fed into the formal hierarchy and revenue flow as they are supposed to be. Instead they are kept locally. In other words market administrators and civil servants do not pass on collected taxes, but pocket them.
This leads to a situation in which traders feel they are overburdened by various forms of revenue extraction.
This isn’t surprising, as there is an unwritten understanding among Congolese that civil servants should fend for themselves by extracting revenue from citizens. People in the DRC jokingly refer to this practice as ‘Article 15’ – parlance for an imaginary article in the country’s constitution which gives civil servants licence to ‘fend for themselves.’
This way of doing things emerged in the 1970s. It was (in)famously launched in a speech delivered by President Mobutu Sese Seko in 1976 in which he famously encouraged his civil servants to ‘steal cleverly’:
&#8220;If you want to steal, steal a little cleverly, in a nice way. Only if you steal so much as to become rich overnight, you will be caught.&#8221;
The speech effectively led to a de-facto privatisation of public services: the state uniform became a way for civil servants to extract revenue.
More surprising, and less documented, is the degree to which higher-level actors intervene to appropriate these revenue streams.
<h2>Repurposed</h2>
First, higher level political networks play an important role in revenue extraction in the markets. In our research, we show how important revenue flows are directly controlled by higher level political actors. This can happen in one of two ways. Either through direct control of particular taxes. Or spatially, in which markets are divided in different zones of interest, in which various actors are able to extract revenue in ‘their’ zone.
The high level influence is most explicit in the Marché de la Liberté. This is the most profitable market in Kinshasa, with high symbolic value. It was constructed by former President Laurent Désiré Kabila as a present to the Kinshasa population.
The Marché de la Liberté has been repurposed as a vehicle for private rent generation through all these measures. Firstly, the market isn’t governed as a state public entity, but by agents who are financially and politically accountable to political elites. Revenues are collected privately and beyond public scrutiny. Staff aren’t employed by the public administration but come from presidential networks. Taxes are not collected by the mandated public servants but by individuals outside the public administration.
Secondly, various actors rely on their personal connections to gain access to the biggest share of (private) revenue – a system which is locally called ‘branchement’. In this system, actors rely on links based on family, ethnicity or regional, political party affiliations, or simply through financial linkages: a common practice is to provide financial or in kind incentives to higher-level authorities.
This practice – which also occurs in other sectors such as the police –provides protection which enables and strengthens private extraction. For example, market administrators pay a weekly amount to higher-level civil servants and politicians, which allows the administrators to keep most of the collected market revenue.
<h2>Unstable situation</h2>
The situation in markets such as the Marché de la Liberté aren’t stable and prone to conflict. For example, in a number of markets conflicts were encountered between finance officers, market administrators and mayors – all of whom were relying on their respective links such as their political party, the governor or presidential advisors to try and reduce the others’ access to income, or even push them out of the market.
In addition, changes in these power configurations at the higher level in turn create changes at the local level. When patrons lose their position – whether this is a minister, high level civil servant, presidential advisor or other – the clients (such as market administrators) lose their protection and access to revenue.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/88602/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />In sum, the outcome for the market traders themselves is rather grim: they are largely dependent on circumstances beyond their control, which they navigate by continuously looking for better connections (‘branchement), which should help to protect them- now or in the future. At the same time, this makes the traders vulnerable, due to their dependence on these connections, and due to the strong monetisation of these connections.
This article was originally published on The Conversation.

How Kinshasa’s markets are captured by powerful private interests

A humanitarian crisis in central Democratic Republic of Congo is easing, Prime Minister Bruno Tshibala told Reuters on Thursday, after confirming an election to replace President Joseph Kabila remains on course for late December.
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The Kasai region is Congo’s biggest security challenge and has been the scene of a growing humanitarian disaster. But the situation there “seems to be improving”, Tshibala said in an interview conducted in London on Thursday.
U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres said in a report on Wednesday that 13.1 million Congolese need humanitarian assistance, twice as many as last year, and that 7.7 million face severe food insecurity, up 30 percent from a year ago.
“The situation is under control,” said Tshibala. Asked about reports of aid workers killed in the country, he said: “We ensure security through our armed forces and police. Humanitarian workers are welcome and are protected.”
Over the last two years, DRC security forces have killed dozens of civilians protesting about election delays. At least two were killed in a crackdown late last month in Kinshasa.
Worsening militia violence has meanwhile raised fears Congo is sliding back towards the civil wars of the turn of the century that killed millions. But Tshibala shrugged off militia groups active throughout the country as lacking political aims.
Much of the unrest stems from Kabila’s extended stay in office. His presidential mandate expired at the end of 2016 but has so far refused to step down.
Tshibala said an election — repeatedly stalled — to replace Kabila is on course for December.
“I committed in front of our country’s representatives in May last year to my mission, which was to bring the Congolese people to elections this year, and I confirm that in December this year the Congolese people will be brought to the ballot boxes,” Tshibala said.
“There were setbacks which caused this delay. But this time our course is set for elections and they will take place on Dec. 23.”
A former leading member of Congo’s main opposition coalition, Tshibala was appointed by Kabila just under a year ago to head a transitional ‘unity’ government tasked with organizing the election.
Asked about technical problems experienced by voting machines during recent testing in the capital Kinshasa, he said: “Machines are a great revolution” that would help the election to run smoothly and in record time.
“We have taken all the precautions with the electoral commission for it to go well. It’s true that it’s a vast country &#8230; but that’s exactly why the voting machines will help improve the process.”
Opponents of Kabila, who has ruled Congo since his father Laurent’s assassination in 2001, suspect he intends to repeatedly delay elections until he can organize a referendum to let himself stand for a third term, as his counterparts in neighboring Congo Republic and Rwanda have done.
Kabila denies those charges, saying the election delays are due to challenges registering millions of voters and budgetary constraints.
<h3>NO CHANGE TO NEW MINING CODE</h3>
Congo, which is nearly the same size as western Europe, has plentiful resources and is implementing new mining laws to increase the revenues it gets from miners active in the country.
It is Africa’s largest copper producer and the source of more than half the world’s cobalt, a vital ingredient in mobile phone and electric vehicle batteries. Its output of cobalt jumped 15.5 percent last year.
The new laws are fiercely opposed by international mining conglomerates, which are concerned Congo will raise taxes and royalties and remove a stability clause in the current law protecting miners from fiscal changes for 10 years.
Kabila held a nearly six hour long meeting with miners on Wednesday to discuss the laws.
But on Thursday Tshibala told Reuters the new code will be signed into law without changes.
He was unable to specify how much extra revenue the changes would generate and said the economic situation remains difficult. The central bank currently predicts inflation will be 38 percent by the end of 2018.
“We are making an internal effort to improve tax collection and government receipts,” said Tshibala.
“If we find ourselves in a difficult situation we won’t hesitate to speak to the international financial institutions to provide a supplement in order to improve our functioning as a state.”
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Reporting by Helen Reid and Marc Jones; Additional Reporting by Aaron Ross; Editing by Catherine Evans
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Congo election remains on track for December, says Prime Minister

Switzerland imposed sanctions including asset freezes and travel bans on 14 allies of Democratic Republic of Congo’s President Joseph Kabila on Wednesday amid a worsening political crisis linked to his refusal to step down.
<div id="attachment_298824" style="width: 860px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-298824" class="wp-image-298824 size-full" src="http://cnbc.africa/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Kabila_GettyImages-800731456.png" alt="" width="850" height="538" />President of the Democratic Republic of Congo Joseph Kabila smiles as he delivers his remarks during a meeting with South African President Jacob Zuma at Sefako Makgatho Presidential Guest House in Pretoria on June 25, 2017. Image: Getty Images</div>
Congolese security forces have killed dozens of protesters in violent crackdowns on a series of demonstrations organised in opposition to Kabila’s decision to remain in power despite the end of his elected mandate in December 2016.
Switzerland has long held a reputation as a favoured international destination for stashing ill-gotten wealth, owing to its banking privacy laws. But in recent years, in the face of international pressure, it has sought to demonstrate greater transparency, including increased cooperation with other nations’ tax authorites.
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The sanctions list published by the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs largely mirrors one already enforced by the European Union. The United States has also imposed sanctions on senior Congolese officials over the past two years.
Regime figures targeted by the Swiss measure include former interior ministers Emmanuel Ramazani Shadari and Evariste Boshab, ex-national police commissioner John Numbi and Kalev Mutond, the head of the National Intelligence Agency.
Information Minister Lambert Mende, who serves as Congo’s government spokesman and is also on the sanctions list, was not immediately available to comment on the Swiss announcement.
In power since 2001, Kabila struck a deal in December 2016 with the main opposition bloc to stay on after his mandate expired on the condition elections were held by the end of 2017.
Government authorities missed that deadline and the vote is now scheduled for this December. However, election officials have hinted that polls may not even be possible then because of financial and logistical constraints.
As the political crisis has dragged on Congo has experienced a spike in violence by armed groups, particularly in the restive east, which many fear could plunge the country back into the kind of conflict in which millions died at the turn of the century.
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Reporting by Aaron Ross; Writing by Joe Bavier; Editing by David Goodman
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Switzerland imposes sanctions on allies of Congo’s Kabila

Mohamed M Diatta | Sciences Po – USPC
The winds of change may blow in several directions across Africa this year as a host of countries prepare for elections. But a change in power isn’t always synonymous with change in governance. In Africa, very often, a new face in power doesn’t signal change of the system of governance.
<div id="attachment_298824" style="width: 860px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-298824" class="wp-image-298824 size-full" src="http://cnbc.africa/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Kabila_GettyImages-800731456.png" alt="" width="850" height="538" />President of the Democratic Republic of Congo Joseph Kabila smiles as he delivers his remarks during a meeting with South African President Jacob Zuma at Sefako Makgatho Presidential Guest House in Pretoria on June 25, 2017. Image: Getty Images</div>
The continent is set for a busy 2018 electoral year. In the past presidential, legislative, or local elections, or a combination, have had a destabilising if not devastating effect due to pre and post-election transparency issues and accompanying protests, violence and political instability. But when conducted well, elections have also brought hope for a better future. Ghana and Benin are good examples.
The year ahead won’t be any different. On the one hand the expected end of Joseph Kabila’s tenure in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) might bring momentous change to the country. On the other it’s more difficult to foresee better days for South Sudan. Others might also depart before elections.
<h2>Early departures?</h2>
All eyes are on Pretoria where the ruling African National Congress has asked President Jacob Zuma to resign following the election of Cyril Ramaphosa as ANC president and South Africa’s next president. As of February 13 he was showing no signs of doing so.
And seven years after the Jasmine Revolution that ousted the regime of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, Tunisians are back on the streets. The wave that took away Ben Ali now threatens to sweep the government of Beji Caid Essebsi.
<h2>Presidential seats at stake</h2>
The DRC has added more instability to its already complex situation. The country has been embroiled in a political and institutional crisis since Joseph Kabila extended his term in office, after failing to amend the constitution to remove the disposition preventing him from running for a third term. He has twice postponed presidential elections, despite signing the December 2016 agreement whose main clause was to have presidential and legislative elections held by December 2017.
Kabila’s failure to hold elections by the December 2017 deadline has led to mounting national protests, which the regime has crushed. Increasing national and international pressure might see Kabila out in 2018 unless he amends the constitution.
In Cameroon, Paul Biya, 85, in power since 1982, should be up for reelection in October. Although there is no indication that he will relinquish power, he has faced dissensions and separatist claims from so-called anglophone Cameroon and is believed to have ill-health. The current lack of succession plans if Biya does not run, leaves room for speculation and uncertainty.
In Madagascar, concern reigns in the run-up to the presidential election at the end of this year, which should see incumbent Hery Rajaonarimampianina face up his two predecessors Marc Ravalomanana and Andry Rajoelina. The island, with a tumultuous history, has been prey to institutional instability since 2001. There are fears this will happen again.
Three countries, South Sudan, Libya and Mali, plagued by instability for some years, are expected to hold presidential elections this year. Strong uncertainties prevail in South Sudan and Libya where negotiations for peaceful settlements have yielded little tangible results. In Mali the government doesn’t control large parts of its territory and is not immune to terrorist attacks.
No surprise will come from Cairo where, Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, will certainly be reelected president of a country he now controls unchallenged.
<h2>Longevity and power sharing dilemmas</h2>
In West Africa, Togolese Faure Gnassingbé appears as a poor student in the field of democracy. He came to power in 2005 in a quasi-dynastic political ‘transition’, replacing his father, General Gnassingbe Eyadema, who had been in power for 38 years. Reelected in 2015, he has, since August 2017, faced massive and sustained popular protests demanding institutional reforms and the end of his family’s 50-year rule.
The Economic Community of West African States is trying, through negotiations, to restore calm. An uneasy situation is emerging given that Faure is the current chairman of the organization until June 2018. But if he completely loses the support of his peers, he might be on his way out. Legislative elections are scheduled to take place by July.
Like Togo, Gabon experienced a similar ‘transition’ from father Omar Bongo, who died in power in 2009 after 42 years of rule, to his son Ali Bongo, who replaced him that year. Once a haven of peace in an unstable Central African region, Gabon has tumbled into a serious crisis since the highly contested presidential election in 2016 which was marred by widespread fraud and deadly repression. Jean Ping, leader of the opposition and former chairperson of the African Union Commission, continues to claim victory.
The hardening of the Libreville regime has recently resulted in a constitutional amendment that the opposition characterises as a ‘monarchisation’ of power. Legislative elections planned this year will certainly be a turning point for the country.
In Guinea Bissau, the power of José Mario Vaz is in troubled waters, with the appointment of a seventh prime minister since 2014. The opposition has decried the president for overstepping his constitutional prerogatives by monopolising power, in violation of the Conakry agreement signed in 2016, under the aegis of the regional west African body.
Vaz runs the risk of sanctions, in which case he would definitively lose the support of the organisation and the protection of the regional troop deployment. This would precipitate his departure and could plunge the country into chaos, in a state that has mostly known military coups and instability. Legislative elections are expected to take place this year.
In Chad, the crisis that has affected resource-dependent countries has plagued the economy. This is coupled with Idris Deby’s stronghold on power and his repressive methods. Despite facing civil unrest, he is unlikely to be shaken even though the country is expected to hold legislative elections this year.
<h2>Ghana setting the pace</h2>
Over the past 20 years, since the John Kofi Agyekum Kufuor presidency, Ghana has epitomised democracy south of the Sahara (aside from South Africa). Its institutional stability and peaceful transitions of power are commendable.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/91690/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />What the continent needs most are strong institutions, which will only come about with a regeneration of its leadership as well as its political class. This renewal must be rooted in a paradigm shift as embodied with determination, class and panache by Ghanaian president Nana Akufo Addo.
This article was originally published on The Conversation.

With a busy election schedule, Africa needs a reversal of the old order

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Gecamines, a base metals company owned by the government of Democratic Republic of Congo will be renegotiating its contracts with international mining partners operating in the country but what will this mean for future investment in the country?

DRC’s Gecamines to renegotiate contracts

Blockchain is to be used for the first time to try to track cobalt’s journey from artisanal mines in Democratic Republic of Congo through to products used in smartphones and electric cars.
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Sources close to a pilot scheme expected to be launched this year say the aim is eventually to give manufacturers a way of ensuring the cobalt in lithium-ion batteries for products such as iPhones and Teslas has not been mined by children.
Tracking cobalt presents many challenges as scores of informal mine sites would have to be monitored, all players in the supply chain would need to buy into the scheme, and accurate, electronic data would need to be transmitted from remote areas &#8211; all in a vast country plagued by lawlessness.
But companies are under growing pressure from consumers and investors to show the cobalt they use has come through supply chains free of rights abuses, just as they have for minerals used in electronics such as tantalum, tin, tungsten and gold.
Businesses in China, the main destination for Congolese cobalt from artisanal mines, have set up a Responsible Cobalt Initiative, which has been joined by tech giants such as Apple and Samsung, to address child labour.
The problem they face is that there are few sure-fire ways of tracing cobalt from the informal mines that produce up to a fifth of the cobalt from Congo, the world’s biggest producer.
“The demand to make cobalt more sustainable is going to continue growing, meaning there is a will to find a solution and blockchain will be part of that,” said a source with the project, who declined to be named because it is not yet public.
<h3>OPEN QUESTION</h3>
Blockchain technology is already used in the diamond industry. Gems are given a digital fingerprint that is then tracked by blockchain as gems are sold, giving a forgery-proof record of where the stones have come from.
The cobalt supply chain is far more complex but the developers of the pilot hope blockchain &#8211; a decentralised online database in the form of a distributed ledger &#8211; can at least track some of the stages that are a major worry for end users.
Sheila Warren, head of blockchain policy at the World Economic Forum, said it was an open question how well it could work in Congo given the prevalence of conflict, lawlessness and an opaque legal system.
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“We are prototyping, iterating, testing, scaling,” said Warren, who is working with experts to see how blockchain can improve mineral supply chains. “The technology is not the hard part.”
Amnesty International, which detailed the extent of child labour in cobalt mining in Congo in a 2016 report, said it was looking at blockchain, especially with a view to tracing payments to middlemen.
“You have to be wary of technological solutions to problems that are also political and economic, but blockchain may help. We’re not against it,” said Amnesty researcher Mark Dummett.
Congo holds half the world’s cobalt reserves and demand for the main mineral component of lithium-ion batteries is set to surge as electric cars proliferate. In 2016, Congo mined 54 percent of the 123,000 tonnes of cobalt produced worldwide.
Carmakers such as Volkswagen are trying to secure long-term cobalt supplies to sustain electric car production, and they are asking suppliers to ensure no child labour was used in the supply chain.
<h3>BAGGED AND TAGGED</h3>
The plan for the Congo pilot scheme is to give each sealed bag of cobalt produced by a vetted artisanal miner a digital tag which is entered on blockchain using a mobile phone, along with details of the weight, date, time and perhaps a photo.
At the next stage, a trader buying the bag would record the details on blockchain, and the process would be repeated until the ore gets to the smelter &#8211; leaving an immutable record of the cobalt’s journey for downstream buyers or third parties to view.
The pilot will involve organisations throughout the supply chain, from on-the-ground monitors checking that sites are not using child labour, through the refining process to end users, according to people helping to develop the scheme.
One potential risk in the supply chain is that cobalt mined by children gets mixed with “clean” cobalt before processing.
The industry is experimenting with options such as indelible marks that survive the refining process, a mass balance approach as used for Fairtrade certification of products such as cocoa, or bolting blockchain onto computer technology already used by refiners to monitor material as it moves through their plants.
“We are very bullish about the potential impact of blockchain in minerals and metals supply chains,” said Harrison Mitchell, director of RCS Global, which advises companies on responsible sourcing and audits supply chains.
“Blockchain-enabled supply chains will have the ability to deliver trust and transparency over the production of metals such as cobalt,” he said. “Ensuring that information from these mine sites is inputted correctly and transparently is difficult, but it is possible.”
<h3>INPUT DATA</h3>
Some institutional investors are also pushing mining companies and manufacturers to harness blockchain to help clean up mineral supply chains.
Christine Chow of Hermes Investment Management said tracking cobalt was far more complex than diamonds, typically involving 12 steps as opposed to five stages for gems.
“But the principle of recording key characteristics and then entering them into the blockchain, which is stored on the cloud, is the same,” said Chow, part of the Hermes EOS team that advises institutional shareholders on responsible investing.
“To make it work, the key players in the chain must agree a set of input data to define its features,” said Chow, whose team has $425 billion of assets under advice.
The International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM) said its members, which include all major mining companies, were well-placed to draw on blockchain’s potential to improve public trust in the industry.
“It does not solve the whole problem, but it solves a big part of the problem,” ICMM CEO Tom Butler said.
“Quality at entry to where the blockchain starts remains a challenge, but in that respect we’re in a privileged position as ICMM members are mining responsibly.”
Glencore, the world’s biggest producer of cobalt, declined to comment on the use of blockchain.
In its 2016 sustainability report, Glencore said when it sourced cobalt in Congo from outside its own production, it only dealt with third parties that did not use artisanal mines.
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Editing by David Clarke
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Blockchain to track Congo’s cobalt from mine to mobile

Chris Saunders, University of Cape Town
While each country in Southern Africa has its own politics, recent developments involving presidents provide interesting contrasts across the region. Which presidents gain and lose power in 2018 – and how they do so – will have significance for the region as a whole, not least in helping determine its continued stability.
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As 2018 begins, Joseph Kabila is clinging to the presidency of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), claiming that there is insufficient funding to hold an election, amid growing protests against him in Kinshasa and elsewhere. It remains to be seen if he will fulfil the undertaking he has made that elections will be held in December this year.
Other countries in the region start 2018 on a much more promising footing. In Botswana, President Ian Khama, approaching the end of his two presidential terms, is expected to step down in an orderly succession in April and will be suceeded by the vice-president.
In both Zimbabwe and Angola autocratic presidents who had been in power for almost four decades lost power in 2017 in very different ways.
<h2>Military intervention in Zimbabwe</h2>
In the case of Zimbabwe the country’s army intervened in November 2017 to force Robert Mugabe to give up power. This came after he had, under the influence of his wife Grace, sacked Emmerson Mnangagwa as vice-president. The Southern African Development Community did not need to intervene, and even the mediation mission it planned wasn’t required.
Instead, the Zimbabwe military acted, with the ruling party, Zanu-PF, to replace Mugabe with Mnangagwa. It did so peacefully, denying during the entire process that a coup was underway. The 93-year-old Mugabe, in office since 1980, initially refused to step down, but was finally removed both as president of the country and of the ruling party.
The country will go to the polls in mid-2018, and Mnangagwa, who was confirmed in December 2017 as Zanu-PF’s presidential candidate, has said that the election will be credible, free and fair, but he has yet to confirm that he will allow international and other observers.
With the military more obviously involved in government than anywhere else in the region, Zimbabwe’s opposition parties divided, and with Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change Alliance seriously ill, there is little likelihood that Zanu-PF or Mnangagwa will lose power.
<h2>Angola</h2>
In Angola José Eduardo dos Santos, suffering from ill-health, agreed in early 2017 to step down as president of the country. He nominated a man he thought would be a trusted successor, hoping to continue to wield influence as president of the ruling MPLA.
After elections for the National Assembly in August, João Lourenço duly succeeded Dos Santos as president. To widespread surprise, he began sacking the heads of some of the country’s key institutions. These included Dos Santos’s daughter, Isabel dos Santos, who was CEO of the state oil company Sonangol.
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And in early 2018 her brother José Filomeno dos Santos, was removed as head of Angola’s sovereign wealth fund. Their father’s influence was rapidly slipping away.
In Angola, as in Zimbabwe, a change of leader to one with a more reformist approach probably means that the ruling party has consolidated itself in power.
<h2>South Africa</h2>
In South Africa in December 2017 the leadership of the governing African National Congress (ANC) passed from Jacob Zuma to Cyril Ramaphosa, who thus became heir apparent to the presidency of the country. While there is no two-term limit for ANC presidents, Zuma had brought the ANC into discredit and Ramaphosa, despite having worked closely with Zuma as deputy president, was seen as the one who would curtail the corruption and “state capture”.
For now, Zuma remains president of the country until general elections due to be held by June 2019. The country waits to see whether, how and when Ramaphosa can arrange to take over as president of the country as well as of the ruling party.
<h2>A presidential challenge defeated</h2>
In Namibia, Hage Geingob had to meet a challenge to his continuing as leader of Swapo, the governing party, in November last year. He was, however, confirmed in his position and will therefore be Swapo’s presidential candidate for the election scheduled to take place in November 2019.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-41104 alignright" src="http://cnbc.africa/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/jacob_zuma__wikipedia-300x185.jpg" alt="South Africa and France sign nuclear agreement" width="300" height="185" />
Geingob supporters now fill all the key posts in his government, enabling him to make policy as he wishes. This is very different from South Africa, where the new ANC leadership remains divided and where Ramaphosa, when he becomes president of the country, will find it difficult to adopt new policies.
<h2>Malawi and Zambia</h2>
Malawi must hold elections in 2019 and the contest for the presidency then has already begun. It is not known whether Joyce Banda, the former president and leader of one of the country’s leading political parties, will return from self-imposed exile abroad to stand again. In 2017 she was formally charged with having been involved in the massive “Cashgate’ corruption scandal” that was uncovered while she was president.
<div id="attachment_41298" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-41298" class="wp-image-41298 size-medium" src="http://cnbc.africa/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/edgar_lungu_flickr-300x189.jpg" alt="Zambia elections body halts campaigning in capital over violence" width="300" height="189" />Zambian President, Edgar Lungu.</div>
In 2017 Lungu became more authoritarian. Hakainde Hichilema, the leader of the main opposition United Party for National Development, was arrested on what were clearly trumped-up charges. These were only dropped in August after interventions by the Secretary-General of the Commonwealth and inside Zambia by the local Catholic Archbishop.In Zambia, by contrast, where the next election is not due until 2021, the question is how Edgar Lungu, who took over the presidency after narrowly winning the presidential election in August 2016, will try to consolidate his power.
Lungu wants to serve a third term as president, and the country’s Constitutional Court has been asked to rule on the matter.
<h2>Regional perspective</h2>
Too often developments in one country are seen in isolation from similar ones elsewhere. Given that South Africa is the most important country in the region, how the Ramaphosa-Zuma poser is resolved will be significant for the region. Elsewhere, how presidents gain and lose, and try to consolidate their power, will help shape the continued stability of the region.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/89980/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />Will political tensions be managed internally, as in Zimbabwe in late 2017? Or will they require some kind of intervention by the Southern Africa Development Community, in the DRC and perhaps elsewhere, to prevent them from escalating? Throughout the region, contests for presidential power are likely to keep political passions on the boil.
This article was originally published on The Conversation.

Stability in southern Africa hinges on how leaders gain and lose power

Reuben Loffman |Queen Mary University of London
For the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) 2017 was a disaster. Presidential and legislative elections were delayed, the violence in Kasai intensified, a long-standing opposition leader died and violence in eastern Congo continued.
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To be sure, 2016 was hardly better. As the slated presidential and legislative elections deadline expired on 27 November 2016, Joseph Kabila remained in office. And the incumbent was still in power when his constitutional term ended on 19 December 2016.
On 31 December 2016, the Catholic Church thought that it had reached a deal with Kabila that would deny him a third term.
As the early weeks of 2017 wore on, however, that deal looked like yet another false dawn for the DRC. And as the year draws to an end there seems to be little hope of a resolution to the major crises that have intensified over the past 12 months. The violence in Kasai is escalating and the conflict in south eastern Congo looks set to continue.
DRC is the largest country in sub-Saharan Africa. It is 2.3 million square kilometres and has a population of nearly 77 million. The country has extraordinary wealth in the form of minerals such as gold ore and copper. However, the proceeds from the sale of these minerals are siphoned off and stolen before they ever reach the population.
Kabila’s insistence on remaining president of the DRC throughout 2017 only compounded these dynamics. While there was some hope in 2016 that he would step aside, 2017 proved that removing him will be a very protracted process.
Since a new constitution was promulgated in 2006 it’s been hard to imagine a worse year for the country than the present one. Only 2012 might have been worse thanks to the M23 rebel movement which briefly took the city of Goma. But the violence in Kasai is threatening to overshadow even that disaster.
The big story as 2017 got going was not the rapidly collapsing church led deal, and the intensified conflict that came as a result, but rather the death of long-standing opposition figure Étienne Tshisekedi in February.
<h2>Death of an icon</h2>
Tshisekedi’s death dealt a blow to the talks between Kabila and the various opposition groups. His death robbed the DRC opposition of a figure who could mobilise popular support as well as cut political deals in Kinshasa.
Worse still, more than nine months since his death he is yet to be buried. Kabila’s government fears that if Tshisekedi’s body is flown back to the DRC it will become the trigger for opposition protests.
Kabila’s fears could prove well founded. It is not hard to imagine the interring of Tshisekedi’s body acting as a lightning rod for the huge social and political tensions in the country. Kabila’s refusal to leave office this year has meant that a range of protests have sprung up across the country. In August, for example, the “dead city” movements ensured that significant parts of the country’s urban population went on strike.
Étienne Tshisekedi’s son, Felix, took over much of the daily running of the party that his father had led for decades when he became the deputy secretary general of the Union for Democracy and Social Progress. But he lacks his father’s experience and gravitas.
<h2>Violence in Kasai</h2>
As political deadlock between the president and the opposition ensued, the humanitarian crisis in Kasaï intensified. Some reports have suggested that more than 3,000 people have been killed since the start of 2017. More than 33,000 Kasai residents have fled into Angola.
The violence in Kasaï was perhaps 2017’s biggest news story. There were reports that it got so bad that little children were being hacked to pieces with machetes.
It is widely believed that the Bana Mura &#8211; a government sponsored militia &#8211; perpetuated this violence. The government fears that if left unchecked a rebel movement in Kasai could seriously undermine its sovereignty in the province.
But local rebels known as the Kamwina Nsapu (‘black ant’ in English), also played a big part in the violence. The Kamwina Nsapu militia were suspected of decapitating 40 police officers in March.
The UN has accused the DRC army of digging mass graves for those they have killed. It has attempted to investigate the atrocities in Kasaï but the investigations have been marred by tragedy.
On 12 March, Michael Sharp, Zaida Catalan and their translator Betu Tshintela were abducted by rebels and later found in a shallow grave. A UN inquiry found that the two investigators were probably killed by members of a local Kasaïan militia.
<h2>More unrest</h2>
In addition to the violence in Kasaï, the south and northeastern parts of the DRC also witnessed deadly conflict during the course of this year. There was major fighting between its Twa and Bantu populations in Tanganyika province. And as the year entered its last quarter, Uvira, on the outskirts of Lake Tanganyika, was the site of a battle between the rebel Yakutumba militia and government forces.
While the Yakutumba militia failed to take Uvira, it was a reminder of the level of discontent building in the east where conflict has been a feature of everyday life since the end of the Second Congo War in 2003. The patchwork of rebels operating in the east has been fragmented but remains heavily networked. Violence could potentially spread to Kivu and beyond.
Some of the rebels have suggested that their ultimate ambition is to march on Kinshasa. But given the small numbers of their forces this might be a long way off.
<h2>Happy New Year</h2>
With such a litany of misery in Congo, one could be forgiven for thinking there is no hope. But on 5 November, the Congolese government finally announced its intention to hold presidential and legislative elections in December 2018.
Many Congolese feel that this date is too far off. As a result, on 15 November there were protests in cities across the country to pressure the government to hurry the elections along.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/88170/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />But the announcement of a date is an indicator that elections will eventually take place. The country risks slipping into civil war if they don’t.
This article was originally published on The Conversation.

2017: the year the Democratic Republic of Congo would like to forget

Congo’s electoral commission announced on Sunday that long-awaited presidential elections to replace President Joseph Kabila would take place on December 23, 2018.
<div id="attachment_41934" style="width: 860px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-41934" class="wp-image-41934 size-full" src="http://cnbc.africa/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/president_joseph_kabila_-_flickr.jpg" alt="Congo's president shows would-be successor who is in charge" width="850" height="567" />Democratic Republic of Congo President, Joseph Kabila </div>
Around 43 million voters have been registered for the vote so far, Corneille Nangaa told a news conference in Democratic Republic of Congo’s capital, Kinshasa.
The election will be held on December 23, 2018, with the results to be published on January 9, 2019, and the president to be sworn in on January 13, another official from the Independent Electoral Commission (CENI), Jean Pierre Kalamba, told the same news conference.
The election, originally scheduled for late 2016, has been repeatedly delayed.
Those delays have triggered unrest and raised fears the central African nation could slip back into the conflicts that killed millions around the turn of the century, mostly from hunger and disease.
The electoral commission had said last month that the presidential vote could not take place until April 2019 at the earliest, and the opposition had warned that the population would “take matters into its own hands”.
Opposition leaders reacted furiously to the new date.
“The predatory regime wants to prolong the instability and misery of the people. We do not accept this fantasy calendar,” exiled opposition leader Moise Katumbi tweeted.
Civil society activist organisation Lucha on Twitter also condemned the announcement.
Dozens died in protests against Kabila’s refusal to step down at the end of his constitutional mandate last December.
U.S. envoy Nikki Haley said during a visit to meet with Kabila last month that the vote must happen in 2018 or it will lose international support.
With no imminent election in sight, a political crisis has set in that is fuelling increasing militia violence and lawlessness in Congo’s east and centre.
Clashes between Congolese troops and supporters of a renegade colonel in Congo’s eastern city of Bukavu killed seven people on Sunday before he surrendered and turned himself in to U.N. peacekeepers. [nL5N1NB0CH]
Kabila has ruled Congo since his father was assassinated in 2001. He says delays are owing to problems registering millions of voters across the vast, forested country.
Opponents say he is using them to eventually remove term limits that prevent him from standing again, as presidents in neighbouring Rwanda and Congo Republic have done. He denies that, but has not categorically said he will step aside.
<div class="Attribution_attribution_o4ojT" data-reactid="55">
Reporting by Patient Ligodi and Amedee Mwarabu; writing by Tim Cocks; editing by David Evans and Jason Neely
</div>

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DRC

DRC’s election outlook: Who has the edge?

OpEd: Fleeting moment of unity for DRC’s opposition

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

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New outbreak of Ebola kills 17 in Democratic Republic of Congo

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

Cobalt to be declared a strategic mineral in Congo

How Kinshasa’s markets are captured by powerful private interests

Congo election remains on track for December, says Prime Minister

Switzerland imposes sanctions on allies of Congo’s Kabila

With a busy election schedule, Africa needs a reversal of the old order

DRC’s Gecamines to renegotiate contracts

Blockchain to track Congo’s cobalt from mine to mobile

Stability in southern Africa hinges on how leaders gain and lose power

2017: the year the Democratic Republic of Congo would like to forget

DRC sets presidential election for December 2018

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