DRC by storm. It is repeated ad nauseum by stalwarts of the ruling
majority whenever they appear on TV talk-shows or at political
gatherings.
Never mind that the election is due to be held in October of next year
and therefore electoral campaigning is virtually by law out of bound
at the present moment. Never mind that the Raïs hasn't privately or
publicly announced his intention of running for his own succession.
These people aren't taking any chances. They've already launched a
presidential bid on behalf of Kabila and it's very ambitious: "To
ensure the reelection of the Raïs in the first round of the
presidential election of 2011." (With warlord Jean-Pierre Bemba likely
to be found guilty at The Hague and his party--the MLC--a ghost of its
previous self, the wishful mantra is likely to turn into a fact next
year.)
Members of the Alliance of the Presidential Majority (AMP)dragging
their feet in joining in chanting the universal mantra are looked upon
suspiciously. And hound dogs of the partisan press of the ruling
majority are unleashed upon those, like Kudura Kasongo--the former
spokesman of the Raïs--who question the wisdom of such a supremacist
agenda in a country just awoken from the nightmare of similar
supremacist agendas of Mobutu and Kabila-père.
Those--like Planning Minister Olivier Kamitatu--who choose to sit by
and watch events unfold from the sidelines aren't spared either. As
Kamitatu isn't taking a stand, he's undoubtedly a "traitor."
Last night I watched on TV MP Yves Kisombe--a turncoat who was thrown
out from the MLC for voting at every turn with the AMP in the National
Assembly--bemoaning the "deviationism" of an MP belonging to the
ruling majority who had the gall of voicing his intent of running for
president next year... They were right indeed, those MLC MPs who kept
accusing Kisombe of being an AMP mole in their midst!
At any rate, the word "deviationism" used by Yves Kisombe encapsulates
the authoritarian syndrome accompanied by its major symptom of
personality cult that has now gripped the country. You just don't call
the president by his name anymore. You refer to him as,"The President
of the Republic, His Excellency Joseph Kabila Kabange." Or if you want
to refer to him as the leader of the ruling political alliance, you'd
call him, "The Moral Authority." Or if you want to cut to the cheese
without risking what some sycophants might perceive as disrespectful
you simply call him by the Swahili word (derived from Arabic) of
"Raïs" (head of state). Political jokes à la Jon Stewart are simply
not viable here.
Just as under Mobutu, top and middle-level managers of parastatals
have to be members of the PPRD, the party of the Raïs, or at the very
least belong to one of the 56 parties making up the Alliance of the
Presidential Majority. And every single one of these managers has to
appear periodically on a TV or radio talk-show and repeat the mantra
of the "reelection of the Raïs in the first round."
It now seems that the mantra has reached a fever pitch. A petition is
now circulating among soukous musicians calling for the creation of a
"Union of Congolese Musicians for the Reelection of the Raïs in the
First Round." Paradoxically, the first signatory of the petition is
none other than the very same Papa Wemba who came out not so long ago
pretending to attack the corruption of the regime!
Pathetic!... Nevertheless, Papa Wemba, like any other Congolese given
the same opportunity, knows how to position himself in the field to
catch the multiple bags of wads of dollars about to start flying in
the direction of people humming early the mantra of the "reelection of
the Raïs in the first round." And pardon this mixed metaphor...
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