Joseph Kabila

Joseph Kabila
President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Assumed office
26 January 2001
Acting: 17 January 2001 – 26 January 2001
Prime Minister Antoine Gizenga
Adolphe Muzito
Louis Alphonse Koyagialo (Acting)
Augustin Matata Ponyo
Samy Badibanga
Preceded by Laurent-Désiré Kabila
Personal details
Born Joseph Kabila Kabange
(1971-06-04) 4 June 1971
Fizi, Congo-Léopoldville
(now Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Political party People's Party for Reconstruction and Democracy
Spouse(s) Olive Lembe di Sita
Alma mater Makerere University
People's Liberation Army National Defense University
Religion Anglicanism

Joseph Kabila Kabange (known commonly as Joseph Kabila, born 4 June 1971) is a Congolese politician who has been President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo since January 2001. He took office ten days[1] after the assassination of his father, President Laurent-Désiré Kabila. He was elected as President in 2006. In 2011, he was re-elected for a second term.[2]

Kabila's term is set to expire in 2016 per the constitution, adopted in 2006. Officials have suggested elections will be held November 2016. However, on 29 September 2016, the nation's electoral authority announced that the election would not be held until early 2018. Talk has focused on the need for a census before holding elections.[3]

Since coming to power, Joseph Kabila has faced continuous wars in eastern Congo and internal rebel forces supported by neighboring governments of Uganda and Rwanda.

Early life and education

Joseph Kabila Kabange was born on 4 June 1971, along with his twin sister Jaynet Kabila. According to official accounts, the twins were born at Hewabora, a small village in the Fizi territory of the South Kivu province, in eastern Congo. Rumors have abounded that Kabila was actually born in Tanzania, which would make him a citizen of that country.[4] He is the son of long time rebel, former AFDL leader and president of the Congo Laurent-Désiré Kabila and Sifa Mahanya.

Kabila's childhood coincided with the low point of his father's political and military career, and was raised in relative remoteness, with few records of his early days. Kabila did attend a primary school organized by his father's rebel forces, before moving to Tanzania where he completed primary and secondary school. Due to his father's status as an enemy of Zairean strongman Mobutu Sese Seko, Kabila posed as a Tanzanian in his school years to avoid detection by Zairean intelligence agents.[4]

Guerrilla and army years

Following high school, Joseph Kabila followed a military curriculum in Tanzania, then at Makerere University in Uganda.[4] In October 1996, Laurent-Désiré Kabila launched the campaign in Zaire to oust the Mobutu regime with his newly formed army, the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire (AFDL). Joseph Kabila became the commander of an AFDL unit that included "kadogos" (child soldiers) and likely played a key role in major battles on the road to Kinshasa, but his exact whereabouts during the war have been difficult to establish.[4] Joseph Kabila appears to have been present at the liberation of Kisangani where media reports identified him as commander of the rebel force that took the city after four days of intense fighting.[5]

Following the AFDL's victory, and Laurent-Désiré Kabila's rise to the presidency, Joseph Kabila went on to get further training at the PLA National Defense University, in Beijing, China.

When he returned from China, Kabila was awarded the rank of Major-General, and appointed Deputy Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in 1998. He was later, in 2000, appointed Chief of Staff of the Land Forces, a position he held until the elder President Kabila's assassination in January 2001.[6] As chief of staff, he was one of the main military leaders in charge of Government troops during the time of the Second Congo War (1998–2003).[4]

First presidential term

Kabila in 2002, with Thabo Mbeki, George W. Bush, and Paul Kagame.

Joseph Kabila rose to the Presidency on 26 January 2001 after the assassination of Laurent-Désiré Kabila, becoming the world's first head of government born in the 1970s.[7] Aged 29, he was considered young and inexperienced. He subsequently attempted to end the ongoing civil war by negotiating peace agreements with rebel groups who were backed by Rwanda and Uganda, the same regional armies who brought Laurent-Désiré Kabila's rebel group to power three years before. The 2002 peace agreement signed at the Inter-Congolese Dialogue in Sun City, South Africa, which nominally ended the Second Congo War, maintained Joseph Kabila as President and head of state of the Congo. An interim administration was set up under him, including the leaders of the country's two main rebel groups as vice-presidents (two other vice-presidents were representatives of the civilian opposition and government supporters respectively). On 28 March 2004, an apparent coup attempt or mutiny around the capital Kinshasa, allegedly on the part of members of the former guard of former president Mobutu Sese Seko (who had been ousted by Kabila's father in 1997 and died in the same year), failed.[8] On 11 June 2004, coup plotters led by Major Eric Lenge allegedly attempted to take power and announced on state radio that the transitional government was suspended, but were defeated by loyalist troops.[9][10]

The ceremonial first train on the newly reconstructed Lubumbashi–Kindu railway, 2004, bearing a portrait of Joseph Kabila.

In December 2005, a partial referendum approved a new constitution, and a presidential election was held on 30 July 2006 (having been delayed from an earlier date in June).[11] The new constitution lowered the minimum age of presidential candidates from 35 to 30; Kabila turned 35 shortly before the election. In March 2006, he registered as a candidate.[12] Although Kabila registered as an independent, he is the "initiator" of the People's Party for Reconstruction and Democracy (PPRD), which chose him as their candidate to the election. Although the new constitution stipulates that a debate be held between the two remaining candidates for the presidency, no debates took place and this was declared by many as unconstitutional.

According to widely disputed provisional results announced on 20 August, Kabila won 45% of the vote; his main opponent, vice-president and former rebel leader Jean-Pierre Bemba, won 20%. The irregularities surrounding the elections results prompted a run-off vote between Kabila and Bemba which was held on 29 October.[13] On 15 November, the electoral commission announced the official results and Kabila was declared the winner, with 58.05% of the vote.[14] These results were confirmed by the Supreme Court on 27 November 2006, and Kabila was inaugurated on 6 December 2006 as the country's newly elected President.[15] He named Antoine Gizenga, who placed third in the first round of the presidential election (and then backed Kabila in the second round) as prime minister on 30 December.[16]

Second Term

2011 election billboard

In December 2011, Kabila was re-elected for a second term as president. After the results were announced on 9 December, there was violent unrest in Kinshasa and Mbuji-Mayi, where official tallies showed that a strong majority had voted for the opposition candidate Etienne Tshisekedi.[17] Official observers from the Carter Center reported that returns from almost 2,000 polling stations in areas where support for Tshisekedi was strong had been lost and not included in the official results. They described the election as lacking credibility.[18] On 20 December, Kabila was sworn in for a second term, promising to invest in infrastructure and public services. However, Tshisekedi maintained that the result of the election was illegitimate and said that he intended also to "swear himself in" as president.[19]

In January 2012, Catholic Bishops in DR Congo also condemned the elections, complaining of "treachery, lies and terror", and calling on the election commission to correct "serious errors".[20]

On 17 January 2015, Congo's parliament passed an electoral law requiring a census before the next elections. On 19 January protests led by students at the University of Kinshasa broke out. The protests began following the announcement of a proposed law that would allow Kabila to remain in power until a national census can be conducted (elections had been planned for 2016).[21][22] By Wednesday 21 January clashes between police and protesters had claimed at least 42 lives (although the government claimed only 15 people had been killed).[21]

The Senate responded to protests by striking the census requirement from its law. Moïse Katumbi announced in October 2015 that he would leave the ruling party due to disagreements over the scheduled election.[23][24]

Jaynet Kabila, the sister of Joseph Kabila, was named in the Panama Papers. Document leaks in 2016 revealed that she is a part-owner of a major Congolese telecom company Digital Congo TV through offshore subsidiaries.[25]

Kabila is vastly unpopular, partly because of the conflicts in the Congo, but also because of the widespread belief that he has enriched himself and his family while ignoring the millions of poor Congolese. There have been protests against his attempts to change term limits and extend his rule. Harsh demonstrations erupted on 20 April 2016 in Lubumbashi, one of Congo's biggest cities.[26]

When Moise Katumbi, the former governor of Katanga Province in the Democratic Republic of Congo and now an opposition figure, announced that he is running for president in an election that is supposed to be held by the end of 2016, his house was surrounded by security forces wanting to arrest him.[27]

Although Kabila's forces have scored an important victory against one large rebel group, the M23, in 2013, many other armed groups have splintered into dangerous movements. And by 2016 new ones have recently risen, like the militias in the Nyunzu area that have killed hundreds of people.[26]

2016 Delayed Election

According to the Constitution of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, President Kabila should not be allowed to serve more than two terms. On 19 September 2016, massive protests calling for him to step down as legally mandated rocked Kinshasa, and killed 17 people.[28] Elections to determine a successor to Kabila were originally scheduled to be held on 27 November 2016. However, on 29 September 2016, the nation's electoral authority announced that the election would not be held until early 2018. According to the electoral commission's vice president, the commission "hasn't called elections in 2016 because the number of voters isn't known."[29] However, the opposition alleges that Kabila had intentionally delayed the election to remain in power.

Partially in response to the delayed election, the United States issued sanctions against two members of Kabila's inner circle, John Numbi and Gabriel Amisi Kumba on 28 September. These were seen as a warning to President Kabila to respect his country's constitution.[30]

More demonstrations are planned to mark the passing of the end of the presidential mandate.[31] Opposition groups claim that the outcome of late elections would be civil war.[32]

Maman Sidikou, the Secretary-General's Special Representative for DR Congo and head of MONUSCO, said that a tipping point into uncontrolable violence could come about very quickly if the political situation is not normalised.[33]

Views

In 2006, Kabila responded to evidence of widespread sex crimes committed by the Congolese military by describing the acts as "simply unforgivable". He pointed out that 300 soldiers had been convicted of sex crimes, although he added that this was not enough.[34]

Wedding

Kabila married Olive Lembe di Sita, on 1 June 2006. The wedding ceremonies took place on 17 June 2006.[35] Kabila and his spouse have a daughter, born in 2001, named Sifa, after Kabila's mother.

As president Kabila is Protestant and Ms Lembe di Sita is Catholic, the wedding ceremonies were ecumenical; they were officiated by both the Catholic Archbishop of Kinshasa, Cardinal Frederic Etsou Bamungwabi, and Pierre Marini Bodho – presiding bishop of the Church of Christ in Congo, the umbrella church for most denominations in the Congo, known within the country simply as "The Protestant Church".

References

  1. ↑ Joseph Kabila Takes Power In Congo
  2. ↑ CIA World Leaders, Democratic Republic of the Congo
  3. ↑ "Will Kabila go?". The Economist. ISSN 0013-0613. Retrieved 2016-04-15.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 Gates, Henry Louis; Akyeampong, Emmanuel; Niven, Steven (2012). Dictionary of African Biography, Volume 2. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 246–50. ISBN 0195382072. Retrieved 4 April 2016.
  5. ↑ McKinley, James. "A Fallen City, Seeking Peace, Greets Rebels". nytimes.com. The New York Times. Retrieved 4 April 2016.
  6. ↑ "Bref Apercu Biographique du Président de la République". RDCongo – Site Officiel du Président de la République.
  7. ↑ "Presidency of Democratic Republic of Congo".
  8. ↑ "Arrests after DR Congo 'coup bid'", BBC, 29 March 2004.
  9. ↑ "Congo National Troops Thwart Coup Attempt", VOA News, 11 June 2004.
  10. ↑ "Coup attempt foiled in Kinshasa", IRIN, 11 June 2004.
  11. ↑ "Elections to be held on 30 July, polls body says", IRIN, 1 May 2006.
  12. ↑ "DR Congo poll deadline extended", BBC, 24 March 2006.
  13. ↑ "Frontrunners need alliances for 2nd round of presidential polls", IRIN, 22 August 2006.
  14. ↑ "Kabila named DR Congo poll winner", BBC News, 15 November 2006.
  15. ↑ "Joseph Kabila sworn in as Congo's elected president", Reuters, 6 December 2006.
  16. ↑ Joe Bavier, "Congo names opposition veteran, 81, prime minister", Reuters, 30 December 2006.
  17. ↑ "DR Congo election: Questions hang over Kabila's victory". BBC News. 10 December 2011.
  18. ↑ "Carter Center: DRC Presidential Election Results Lack Credibility (press release)". Carter Center. 10 December 2011.
  19. ↑ "DR Congo President Joseph Kabila begins second term". BBC News. 20 December 2011.
  20. ↑ "Catholic bishops condemn DR Congo presidential poll". BBC News. 13 January 2012.
  21. 1 2 Ross, Aaron (21 January 2015). "UPDATE 2-Congo protests enter third day, rights group says 42 dead". Reuters. Retrieved 21 January 2015.
  22. ↑ Jullien, Maud (21 January 2015). "DR Congo unrest: Catholic church backs protests". BBC. Retrieved 21 January 2015.
  23. ↑ "To Con or Go?". The Economist. ISSN 0013-0613. Retrieved 2016-04-15.
  24. ↑ "An old ally of Joseph Kabila leaves the ruling party". The Economist. ISSN 0013-0613. Retrieved 2016-04-15.
  25. ↑ Lily Kuo (4 April 2016). "Africa loses more money to illicit financial flows than it receives in foreign aid". Quartz.
  26. 1 2 "In Congo, Wars Are Small and Chaos Is Endless". Nytimes.
  27. ↑ "Home of Congo Presidential Challenger Is Surrounded by Police". Nytimes.
  28. ↑ "DR Congo election: 17 dead in anti-Kabila protests". BBC News. BBC. 19 September 2016. Retrieved 29 September 2016.
  29. ↑ Wilson, Thomas; Mbatha, Amogelgang (29 September 2016). "Congo Election Body Proposes Two-Year Wait for Presidential Vote". Bloomberg BusinessWeek. Retrieved 29 September 2016.
  30. ↑ Burke, Jason (28 September 2016). "US imposes sanctions on top DRC officials after election delaey". The Guardian. Retrieved 1 October 2016.
  31. ↑ Guardian - Demonstrations banned Police killed (20 September 2016)
  32. ↑ Democratic Republic of Congo faces civil war
  33. ↑ Political polarization in DR Congo may spark ‘large-scale violence,’ UN envoy warns Security Council
  34. ↑ Jeff Koinange, "Congo president on military rapes: 'Unforgivable'", CNN, 1 June 2006.
  35. ↑ "Solennel mariage religieux du président Joseph Kabil". 17 June 2006. Retrieved 17 May 2011.

Further reading

Political offices
Preceded by
Laurent-Désiré Kabila		 President of the Congo-Kinshasa
2001–present 		Incumbent
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