Louis Alphonse Daniel Koyagialo Ngbase te Gerengbo
Powerful politician from Equateur Province
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Posts, Telephones and Telecommunications (PTT)
A limited cabinet reshuffle made by Joseph Kabila was announced on RTNC, the state-owned radio and television broadcast system, in the late evening hours of Sunday, September 11, the closing date of submissions to CENI of legislative and presidential candidacies. Joseph Kabila filed to run for president on Sunday. Kabila’s own
This limited reshuffle, with the appointment of 4 new ministers, prompted equally limited musical chairs. This reshuffle, though precipitated by Nyamwisi’s presidential bid, was however long overdue. François-Joseph Nzanga Mobutu, a member of this government, was fired in March. The demotion of Nzanga Mobutu had triggered the resignation by solidarity of Bernard Biondo, Minister of External Trade, a member of Mobutu’s Union des Démocrates Mobutistes (UDEMO). Minister of Rural Development Philippe Undji had been fired and thrown in jail for embezzlement—though the prosecution’s case against him has since collapsed.
The Ministry of Decentralization, whose occupant Nyamwisi has quit to run for president, has been scrapped altogether. Other ministers have been moved around to accommodate the new influx. But Adolphe Muzito remains as Prime Minister. And Kinshasa media will soon refer to this reshuffle and this cabinet as Muzito III.
Two appointments have raised eyebrows: 1) Jean-Pierre Daruwezi, an Orientale Province native and chief spy since 2007 as head of the Agence Nationale de Renseignements (ANR); and 2) Louis Alphonse Daniel Koyagialo Ngbase te Gerengbo, who hails from the same area as Mobutu in the Equateur Province and former acting secretary general of Kabila’s political cartel, as Deputy Prime Minister—a tailor-made position, the cabinet having now three deputy prime ministers.
These appointments point to major reshuffles in Kabila’s election strategy in these two provinces. Daruwezi was planning to run for a Parliamentary seat in Kisangani. If Daruwezi has withdrawn his legislative bid, his appointment would mean that Kabila wants someone else to run for that seat and this ministerial post is offered as compensation. The appointment of Koyagialo makes sense as Kabila has vowed to win the late dictator Mobutu’s stronghold in the Equateur. And the renewed visibility of Koyagialo could help.
The 4 new ministers are the following:
a) Louis Alphonse Koyagialo Ngase te Gerengbo, former acting secretary general of Kabila’s political cartel, is appointed Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Posts, Telephones and Telecommunications (PTT);
b) Jean-Pierre Daruwezi is the new Minister of Economy;
c) Justin Kalumba Mwana Ngongo is appointed Minister of External Trade; and
d) Charles Alulea Mengulwa, is now Minister Rural Development.
2) 12 Presidential candidates
Joseph Kabila aka Raïs, First Lady Olive Lembe aka Maman-Capable and kids
At CENI headquarters
Kinshasa, Sunday, September 11, 2011
Photo: John Bompengo/Radio Okapi
With the near stampede at CENI offices on Sunday, the number of presidential candidates now stands at 12. There’s a woman among these candidates: MLC Senator Bernardette Nkoy Mafuta, who’s running as an independent. In the first round of 2006 presidential election, there were 32 presidential candidates, many of whom ran in order to make deals with first round’s front runners.
Here are the 12 presidential candidates:
1. Jean Andeka Djamba (ANCC)
2. Etienne Tshisekedi (UDPS)
3. François Joseph Nzanga Mobutu (Udémo)
4. Vital Kamerhe (UNC)
5. Kengo wa dondo (UFC)
6. Nicéphore Kakese (URDC)
7. Joseph Kabila (Independent, PPRD and MP)
8. Oscar Kashala (UREC)
9. Antipas Mbusa Nyamwisi (RCD-K/ML)
10. Adam Bombole (Independent, MLC)
11. Bernardette NKoy Mafuta (Independent, MLC)
12. Ismaël Kitenge (MRC-PTF)
3) Crisis flares up anew in MLC: MP Adam Bombole Intole and Sen. Bernardette Nkoy Mafuta as presidential candidates
MP Adam Bombole (MLC)
Former Customs Agent, Millionaire Playboy and Jean-Pierre Bemba’s confidant and "babysitter"
Independent Presidential Candidate
Photo: John Bompengo/Radio Okapi
The most incredible event of the weekend was the presidential candidacies as independents of MLC stalwarts MP Adam Bombole Intole and Senator Bernardette Nkoy Mafuta.
MP Bombole, 53, a former customs agent, is a flashy Kinois millionaire who owns “SARL Kinoises,” and, until his marriage last year, was also a celebrated playboy whose display of self-serving generosity is sung by soukouss musicians.
The candidacy of MP Bombole triggered an outrage within the leadership of the MLC. Party’s spokesperson and member of founders’ caucus Germain Kambinga told the press that he was opposed to Bombole’s candidacy in any shape or form, and that it didn’t engage the MLC. This signals an implosion of the MLC.
People close to MP Bombole claim however that Jean-Pierre Bemba gave him the go-ahead from his jail cell at the Scheveningen Prison complex at The Hague. If this is true, then Bemba is repeating his mentor Mobutu’s infamous adage: “After me, the deluge,” for there isn’t the slightest chance that MP Bombole would even replicate Bemba’s 2006 feat of crushing Kabila in MLC’s former stronghold of Kinshasa.
If anything, the defeat of MP Bombole in his 2007 bid for Kinshasa governorship could serve as an indication of how his presidential run will pan out.
This is what happened…
MP Bombole had just been elected a Member of Parliament
And on paper, Bombole’s prospects were looking very bright: 22 provincial assemblymen in the total 48 members were MLC members —“very close to an absolute majority,” as the press duly noted at the time. And facing the formidable challenge of MLC in this gubernatorial election was the apparently doomed Kabila’s ticket: André Kimbuta Yango (PPRD) and Bafiba Zomba (PALU) as lieutenant-governor candidate.
When votes were counted on the day of the election—January 27, 2007—André Kimbuta had however soundly defeated Adam Bombole, who, along with his friend Bemba, accused Kabila of bribing MLC provincial assemblymen to vote against their own candidate.
But at the root of MP Bombole’s defeat was a miscalculation akin to Kabila’s own misreading of the Senate in attempting to impose his candidate Léonard She Okitundu as Senate President against Kengo, who won that election, with Kabila’s own senators voting for the opposition candidate.
What MP Bombole and Sen. Jean-Pierre Bemba failed to see was the following. Politicians belonging to the ethnic groups from Bandundu, Bas-Congo, and the Bateke (the traditional settlers of Kinshasa), who make up 80% of the population of the Congolese capital, had longtime ago decided that Kinshasa governorship belonged to them—in the new decentralized “geopolitical” arrangement of the Third Republic (the First and Second republics being, respectively, the administrations of Joseph Kasa-Vubu and Mobutu + Laurent Kabila + Joseph Kabila-prior to democracy).
MP Bombole, though a “Kinois,” hails from the Equateur Province. If it’s true that the MLC gubernatorial ticket included a politician from Bandundu, Fidèle Babala, the latter was considered as a mere “factotum,” in his capacity as chief of staff of Vice-President Bemba in the transitional government and a member of MLC. These Kinois politicians saw as an insult the ploy of using a stooge to win their votes. Hence, MP Bombole’s “scandalous” defeat.
This time around, the presidential candidacy of MP Bombole is universally mocked across the country. The man is himself considered as Bemba’s “stooge” and “babysitter”—spending much of his time on visits to his pal at Scheveningen Prison…
MLC appears more and more as an out-of-control ship drifting in stormy seas.
4) Tshisekedi on yet another stint abroad
People are stunned and mystified at hearing news of a yet another trip abroad being taken by UDPS Etienne Tshisekedi. Kinshasa media report today that having flown from N’Djili International Airport on Friday evening, Tshisekedi arrived at Brussels Zaventem Airport in the morning of Saturday. Upon deplaning, Tshisekedi was whisked by Belgian secret service agents to his hotel, thus preventing him from mingling with the crowds of his UDPS supporters and Bana-Congo radicals. It’s speculated that the Belgian authorities wanted to prevent Tshisekedi from importing Kinshasa political violence on their territory.
UDPS insiders say that Tshisekedi, after meeting Belgian officials, will head to Paris and Washington to voice his concerns over the organization of elections. On his way back to the DRC, Tshisekedi will first go to Kisangani, before embarking on a tour of eastern provinces.
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