tenterhooks. And though Radio-Trottoir, with its permanent cynicism
towards the political class whose members it deems as irredeemable
thieving thickos, is playing things down, some political jitters are
nonetheless palpable in the Congolese capital.
The headline is of course the return on Wednesday, December 8, of
ÉTIENNE TSHISEKEDI aka LIDER MAXIMO aka TSHITSHI, the veteran leader
of the "Pavlovian" radical opposition. First slated for Sunday,
December 5, Tshitshi's return was finally postponed to Wednesday. The
postponement was necessary as on that Sunday Kin was astir with the
triumphant high mass celebrated by Cardinal Laurent Monsengwo
Pasinya--recently returned from Rome where he was created cardinal by
Pope Benedict XVI--at the packed Stade des Martyrs, with, in
attendance, the Raïs, the cabinet, the MPs and senators as well as the
First Lady of neighboring Congo-Brazzaville--a DRC citizen--who was
representing her husband).
At the Vatican, Congolese diaspora radical opposition activists (many
of whom belong to European section of Tshitshi's UDPS) attempted to
physically bar from the solemn service the official Congolese
delegation led by AMP stalwarts and Kinshasa-born Évariste Boshap,
Speaker of the National Assembly, and MP Yves Kisombe, a defector from
MLC. Vatican protocol, with the muscled backing of the Swiss Guards,
had to intervene to make way for the shaken delegates. (About two
years ago, Yves Kisombe was mugged by the same diaspora activists in
London.). No wonder Cardinal Monsengwo in his homily at the Stade des
Martyrs thanked with uncharacteristic effusiveness the Raïs
(undoubtedly seething with anger at the slighting of his delegation at
the Vatican) for his financial assistance for the feast and the dinner
at the Vatican.
The return of Tshitshi did nevertheless coincide with the Raïs'
(disappointing for many) State of the Nation address before the joint
chambers of Parliament reunited in Congress.
That's why there was so much anticipation at what Tshitshi would have
to say at his residence where hundreds of the thousands that welcomed
him at N'Djili Airport had congregated.
Tshitshi--who was absent from the country for 3 long years for medical
treatment, first in South Africa, then in Belgium--appeared frail and
the old geezer he's become: he just turned 78. Slumped in a chair,
wearing a cap and oddly thick sunglasses in the night that has fallen
over the city, a mike held in front of his face (is he that weak he
can't even hold a mike?), Tshitshi managed to blurt out a somewhat
rambling short speech.
Tshitshi complained about the soaring commodity prices in Kinshasa
markets, announced the UDPS' congress opening Saturday (yesterday) and
his candidacy for president for the presidential election next year
before urging his supporters to "go home and spread the news!"
Tshitshi is arguably a case study of a powerful politico who
needlessly squanders political capital.
His first damning mistake was to sideline his party in the 2006
general elections, claiming that they would be rigged as they were
nothing more than a machination orchestrated by the international
community to legitimize the incumbent president! This kind of
conspiracy theory mindset is what made MP Yves Kisombe, in a recent
interview, rightly qualify Tshitshi's political discourse as "archaic"
and "wacky" [désaxé], and therefore unappealing to mainstream voters.
UDPS willingly forfeiting its rightful place in the political arena
had quite unforeseen damaging consequences. It doesn't have one single
MP or senator in Parliament, and has thus the irrelevance of what is
called here the "non-institutional opposition." Moreover, it won't
consequently have a representative in the Commission Électorale
Nationale Indépendante (CENI) that is about to permanently replace the
transitional CEI. According to the law voted in the National Assembly,
the majority has to line up 4 candidates and the "institutional
opposition" 3 candidates--who would then be approved or rejected by
MPs' votes. The institutional opposition has already lined up its
members, none of whom is from the UDPS.
Tshitshi's call to his supporters (called "combatants") "to go home
and spread the news" shows another "archaic" communication MO gravely
lacking in strategic thinking. With all the funds UDPS has, the party,
unlike all the other political organizations, doesn't own a TV or
radio station that could help spread its message nationwide. In
contrast, MLC's Jean-Pierre Bemba owns two TV and radio stations (CKTV
and CCTV) that continue to unflinchingly support him during his
ongoing ordeal at the International Criminal Court (ICC).
More damning still is the split within UDPS over Tshitshi's slapdash
move of turning his party into a family affair by promoting as his
political heir his unqualified son Félix Tshisekedi.
Beside Tshitshi and his rocky return in the Congolese capital, former
Speaker VITAL KAMERHE rears his head once more by announcing on Friday
that he's resigning from the National Assembly and setting up his own
political party--the Union Nationale Pour la Nation Congolaise
(UNPNC)!
Kamerhe made his thundering break with the Raïs' party, the PPRD, in a
televised interview on the TV station "Congo Média Channel" (CMC)
belonging to Kudura Kasongo, the erstwhile spokesperson of the Raïs.
He revisited his demise from the speakership and his break with the
Raïs over the joint anti-FDLR Rwandan-Congolese military operations.
He said he didn't see how Rwandan and Congolese troops could possibly
wipe out the FDLR in the limited operational time-frame given, while
Rwandan troops couldn't even come close to achieving that objective
during the 5-year Rwandan military occupation of the very same
territory where the FDLR are entrenched.
Bold as brass, Kamerhe didn't rule out a run in the presidential
election of next year! Well, this would prove to have been more easily
said than done. The presidential majority AMP is a formidable
nationwide cartel of 50-odd parties, whereas Kamerhe could only
slightly encroach on the Raïs' constituency in his (Kamerhe's) home
province of South-Kivu.
But Kamerhe is a talented charismatic campaigner who could be
"carbuncular" to the Raïs' AMP if he were to enter into a coalition
with Tshitshi. And, as it turns out, he was among the stalwarts
featured Saturday evening on TV being ushered in on the podium at the
opening of the UDPS Congress for solemn handshakes with the
widely-grinning Lider Maximo.
An appearance that was certainly duly noted and frowned upon by the
presidential majority. Renewed vicious negative personal attacks are
therefore to be expected against Kamerhe and Kudura Kasongo in the
AMP-controlled medias, over their "political harlotry."
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