Correction: 2 Sisters of Jean-Pierre Bemba elected in Equateur

In the previous post I incorrectly wrote that Jean-Pierre Bemba's wifewas elected MP in Equateur. It was instead two sisters of the jailedMLC leader who were elect...

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CENI releases partial legislative results: Conservation Minister José Endundo defeated in Equateur

The board of the independent national electoral commission (CENI)started releasing partial legislative election results yesterday,Wednesday, December 28, on prime time TV. Further results are expectedtoday evening.This follows a one-week freeze of CENI's activities ordered by itsboard. CENI had then requested the participation of electoral expertsfrom the U.S. and Britain in the wake of the outcry over presidentialelection results. American experts are due to arrive by this week'send whereas their British and African counterparts are expected to...

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The People's Republic of Kinshasa: "A bullet train headed straight against the wall" (Mgr Nicolas Djombo)

The third round of CENI announcement of partial results of the presidential election occurred late in the night of Sunday, December 4. With 52.91% of votes tabulated from the 168 CENI regional "compilation centers," the trend from the two previous partial results remains steady, unchanged, and statistically sound: Kabila maintains his lead with 4,841,555. It now seems statistically impossible for Tshisekedi to reverse that trend: he's at 3,402,642. As could be anticipated, Tshisekedi and his sycophants have rejected these results and second-guessed...

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Larry Devlin, Congo CIA Chief of Station: in his own words

Someone in the household pointed me to my Kinshasa library where I fou Larry Devlin, "Chief of Station, Congo" (Public Affairs, New York, 2007, p.95):I'll never forget my reaction of total, fall-to-the-floor shock. "Jesus H. Christ!" I exploded  "Isn't this unusual?"(...)"Who authorized this operation?" I asked."President Eisenhower," Joe said. " I wasn't there when he approved it, but Dick Bissel said that Eisenhower wanted Lumumba removed." (...)He handed over several poisons. One was concealed in a tube of toothpaste. If Lumumba used it,...

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The People's Republic of Kinshasa: "A bullet train headed straight against the wall" (Mgr Nicolas Djombo)

The third round of CENI announcement of partial results of the presidential election occurred late in the night of Sunday, December 4. With 52.91% of votes tabulated from the 168 CENI regional "compilation centers," the trend from the two previous partial results remains steady, unchanged, and statistically sound: Kabila maintains his lead with 4,841,555. It now seems statistically impossible for Tshisekedi to reverse that trend: he's at 3,402,642. As could be anticipated, Tshisekedi and his sycophants have rejected these results and second-guessed...

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Larry Devlin, Congo CIA Chief of Station: in his own words

Someone in the household pointed me to my Kinshasa library where I fou Larry Devlin, "Chief of Station, Congo" (Public Affairs, New York, 2007, p.95):I'll never forget my reaction of total, fall-to-the-floor shock. "Jesus H. Christ!" I exploded  "Isn't this unusual?"(...)"Who authorized this operation?" I asked."President Eisenhower," Joe said. " I wasn't there when he approved it, but Dick Bissel said that Eisenhower wanted Lumumba removed." (...)He handed over several poisons. One was concealed in a tube of toothpaste. If Lumumba used it,...

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The People's Republic of Kinshasa: "A bullet train headed straight against the wall" (Mgr Nicolas Djombo)

The third round of CENI announcement of partial results of the presidential election occurred late in the night of Sunday, December 4. With 52.91% of votes tabulated from the 168 CENI regional "compilation centers," the trend from the two previous partial results remains steady, unchanged, and statistically sound: Kabila maintains his lead with 4,841,555. It now seems statistically impossible for Tshisekedi to reverse that trend: he's at 3,402,642. As could be anticipated, Tshisekedi and his sycophants have rejected these results and second-guessed...

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In response to Mel's comment to my previous post

It's so strange that you, of all people, would not give me the benefitof the doubt, that I could be speaking from personal politicalconviction--however wrongheaded this choice might seem to you. Onceagain, I don't belong to Kabila's propaganda machine and if I did Iwould be directing my energies to writing pamphlets for the Congolesedomestic audience and in French. Besides, I'd be living large in Kin,not bumming survival money from my US-based family or wasting precioustime of enjoying the many bounties of the Congolese capital in drearybusiness...

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Tshisekedi's bloody trail & the farce of lecture on democracy by the West

A startling irony of the much overlooked DRC history is that the venueof Martyrs Stadium where Tshisekedi insisted on staging hisswearing-in farce is the very site where one Prime Minister and threeministers where hanged on trumped-up conspiracy charges called"Pentecost Conspiracy" in 1966--a conspiracy hatched in the criminalminds of Mobutu and his then right-hand man, Interior Minister EtienneTshisekedi, in order to do away with the remnants of President JosephKasa-Vubu's regime they had toppled in 1965. (Tshisekedi's long-running role as Mobutu's...

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UDPS looses Baluba youth gangs upon Kinshasa

(This post is emailed via mobile phone after much delay: internetconnexion was cut off during the riots.)Tshisekedi was planning his mock swearing-in ceremony on Friday,December 23, at 11:00 Hours Kinshasa Time (GMT + 1) at Martyrs Stadiumin Kinshasa (in my previous post I mistakenly identified the venue asTata Raphaël Stadium). But that didn't happen. For one, the RepublicanGuard has been surrounding the stadium with tanks for several daysnow. Secondly, a heavy police deployment was able to disperse thethrong of Baluba youth gangs that had had...

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Kabila sworn in Prez with Robert Mugabe in attendance

The swearing-in ceremony of Joseph Kabila as DRC president took placethis morning at the Cité de l'Union Africaine, in Ngaliema Commune, inKinshasa. The ceremony was carried out live by RTNC, thegovernment-owned broadcasting system.Besides the Western ambassadors accredited to Kinshasa (including theUS Ambassador), Zim Prez Robert Mugabe was the only head of state inattendance. The other remarkable guests included the South AfricanForeign Minister, the prime ministers of South Sudan and Rwanda aswell as representatives of other African countries.Presidential...

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DRC Supreme Court of Justice finds Vital Kamerhe's petition groundless & proclaims Kabila Prez

The Supreme Court of Justice ( CSJ) proclaimed on Friday December 16Joseph Kabila as winner of the November 28 presidential election. TheCourt in fact confirmed the figures of the provisional resultsreleased earlier by the national electoral commission (CENI).Vital Kamerhe was the sole presidential candidate to file a petitionMonday to the Supreme Court requesting that the elections be simplyvoided.The formal hearing on Kamerhe's petition at the Supreme Court was heldon Thursday and broadcast later on national TV. Kamerhe's 21-memberlegal team...

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Squandered elections & broken narratives of "un-nation-ness"

It's now dawning on people--including myself--that the November 28general elections may have been squandered. Brushing off the combinedand overlapping criticisms of the Carter Center and the EU observationmissions now becomes a perilously tenuous and untenable rationalstance. Something fishy did happen at the centers of votes aggregation("centres de compilation") of Lubumbashi in the Katanga Province andKinshasa. The most astonishing thing about the alleged systematicrigging and opposition disenfranchisement is that it was unnecessaryand outright...

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CENI Chair lashes out at Carter Center and politically-tainted Kinshasa Cardinal

CENI Chair Rev Daniel Ngoy Mulunda convened a press conmference Mondayevening to lash out at a damning Carter Center report intimating thatthe elections were deeply flawed--though it stopped short ofquestioning the overall results or the rankings of presidentialcandidates as given by CENI. Seething with outrage, Rev Mulunda alsoaddressed a devastating comment made the same day by Kinshasa CardinalLaurent Mosengwo charging that the results published by CENI reflected"neither truth nor justice." (Ealier in the day, as he was being cuedfor a live...

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Tshisekedi insurgency fizzles out

After being holed up for two days, people in my neighborhood--one ofthe hotbeds of Tshisekedi insurgency--finally got out of their homesas public transportation resumed. The neighborhood was also reelingfrom the losses it suffered during the riots. A man was hit in thehead by a stray bullet while sitting in his compound. A youngdemonstrator who resisted being taken away by cops by sprawlingspread-eagled on the pavement was bayoneted in the right foot and leftto bleed on the street.Last night, in the downpour that started at around 2 am, inmates...

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Madman Tshisekedi: "I won with 75%!"

Madman Tshisekedi is at it again. He outright rejects the presidentialresults announced by CENI in the afternoon of Friday, December 9, thatgive Kabila a winner by a landslide with 48.95% (Tshisekedi got32.33%).He claimed, in an interview with Radio France Internationale (RFI),that he won with 75% (!), and hence, is DRC president-elect! Askedabout Kabila's score, Tshisekedi placed it at around "22% or 33%."He further insists that as the Supreme Court is a "Kabila'sinstitution," he's not going to file any legal challenge and wants the"international...

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Radio-Trottoir Feed: "No Country for Elections"

Kin is tense, awaiting the publication this evening of the provisionalpresidential election results by CENI.The opposition, belatedly rallied around Etienne Tshisekedi, seems tohave found another wrong tree to bark. It now demands that CENIproduce, alongside the provisional results, the "real affidavits"("procès-verbaux" or "PV") by polling station underlying thosenumbers.The opposition is backed in this demand by Western diplomatic missionsaccredited to Kinshasa.Some diplomats even appear to have now considerably watered down theirinitial sweeping...

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1) Donnybrook at Selembao & 2) Kudura Kasongo nabbeb at Beach Ngobila crossing

1) Donnybrook at SelembaoA donnybrook pitting a 20-jeep-strong patroling police convoy againstSelembao Commune residents erupted in the morning of Wednesday,December 9. Significantly, the disturbance took place on ex-Avenue du24 Novembre, about 800 meters south of Makala Central Prison.Residents, who woke up angered by CENI 48-hour postponement of theannouncement of the provisional results of the presidential election,saw the police show of force as a blatant attempt at intimidation andstormed the road--hurling insults and projectiles at the patrol....

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The People's Republic of Kinshasa: "A bullet train headed straight against the wall" (Mgr Nicolas Djombo)

The third round of CENI announcement of partial results of thepresidential election occurred late in the night of Sunday, December4. With 52.91% of votes tabulated from the 168 CENI regional"compilation centers," the trend from the two previous partial resultsremains steady, unchanged, and statistically sound: Kabila maintainshis lead with 4,841,555. It now seems statistically impossible forTshisekedi to reverse that trend: he's at 3,402,642.As could be anticipated, Tshisekedi and his sycophants have rejectedthese results and second-guessed the...

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Tight Swahili-Bandundu Bulkhead snuffs out Tshisekedi (CENI partial results)

CENI had started releasing partial results of the presidential election but its website was swiftly hacked. CENI Chair Rev Daniel Ngoy Mulunda, flanked by the full board of the electoral commission, has resorted to Plan-B: reading out partial results as they are trickling in at press briefings. The trend is now shaping up: just as in 2006 against Jean-Pierre Bemba, Kabila has taken out 6 out of the 11 provinces of the DRC: all the eastern Swahili speaking bloc of provinces, plus the southwestern province of Bandundu, the stronghold of "Patriarch"...

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To Jason Stearns & other friends: I'm fine, but under heavy medication

It's only today that I got to check out my email account--where I found Jason Stearns' comment advising friends to check out on my whereabouts as my silence was worrisome. Thanks for the query, Jason. I'm fine, but most of the time out of it: I'm mostly sedated, under heavy medication... I got sick, the day after the elections: I was diagnosed with severe malaria and nasty typhoid. That's what you get living in the squalor of Kinshasa slums. Strangely, on the eve of the elections, I was discussing Jason Stearns' Congo theory and his new book against...

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Bloody End of Electoral Campaign in Kinshasa: 10 dead and more than 40 injured

Kinshasa was reeling today from the violence that engulfed the Tshangu constituency Saturday afternoon. By Sunday evening, the death tool stood at 10 "killed by bullets" and more than 40 injured (Radio Okapi). Tension started flaring up by mid-morning when pro-Kabila and UDPS clashed at the Place du Cinquantenaire, a short distance from the Palais du Peuple, the seat of Parliament. Tshisekedi was slated to hold his rally at the Place du Cinquantenaire, Kabila at Stade des Martyrs (Kinshasa Commune), and Kamerhe at Stade Tata Raphaël (Kalamu Commune)--all...

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Live Blog: Ndeko Basile Olongo Pongo is alive and kicking...

Contrary to rumors "Ndeko" (Brother) Basile Olongo Pongo, formerly an anchor of RLTV and currently MP candidate No. 960 0f Funa constituency, is pretty much alive and kicking. I just followed him on RLTV where he was denying the rumor of his assassination......

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Live Blog: Who landed at Ndolo Airport?

21:44 HRS Kinshasa Time (GMT + 1). (Or thereabout.)Plot now thickens as to who between Kabila and Tshisekedi landed at Ndolo Airport. Another version has Tshisekedi's aircraft landing at Ndolo instead of N'Djili Airport as previously planned. This change of plan, still according to this version, angered so much Tshisekedi he drove to N'Djili to confront airport authorities and pick up his supporters who were awaiting him. Hence, the ensuing scuffles involving UDPS members and the ban on rallies issued by Kin Gov André Kimbuta!......

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LiveBlog: Back home

20:24 HRS Kinshasa Time (GMT + 1) or thereabout... I'am back home now... Funny: was listening to a couple of reports on Konshasa and the Cobgo on BBC. Claims of UDPS standoff with police as the former are alleged to be bent on holding their rally today! That's a lie: it's night time now and there's no way authorities  would allow a rally to be held at night... Despite the donnybrook in Tshangu, Kin is guardedly calm tonighy......

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Live blog

20:33 Kinshasa Time (GMT + 1) or thereabout...I've just been informed that Kabila's aircraft coming from Bas-Congo Province landed at the smaller military airport of Ndolo--no doubt to avoid Lumumba Boulevard that goes thru Tshisekedi stronghold of Limete......

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Live Blog 2: Hectic end of electoral campaign

Around 17:56 HRS Kinshasa Time. My London "muzungu/mundele" (as Kinois kept calling this blogger's folliower at this sidewalk bar) buddy did show up. We shared a "Skol" beer while discussing Monday plans  (election day). We took snapshots of a UDPS campaign motorcade. Though Matonge is a abuzz with music, there's an ominous cloud of unease loomong (by the way it's an overcast sky). While sharing a beer with my British buddy, I got a call from my family urging me to steer clear of Victoire Place in Matonge where there was heaving shooting (where...

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Hectic end of campaign in Kin: Live Blog

16:05 Kin Time--All campaign rallies have been canceled by Kin Gov for fear of violence. PALU members are alleged to have attacked a UDPS motorcade around N'Djili bridge on the road to the airport. I'm in Matonge quarter now waiting for a London follower of this blog....

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Misinformation overdrive, confusion, and lingering questions over Tshisekedi Plane Stories

A Radio-Okapi report posted today--here, Tuesday, November 22--says that Tshisekedi has finally fliown to Mbandaka fron Kindu--without giving any precision on the type of aircraft the UDPS leader boarded. Pro-Tshisekedi media assert it was the same chartered jet pro-Kabila media alleged to have been recalled to South Africa. (Some readers here think I'm cooking these stories myself. I am not. Media here are so partisan you end up totally misinformed and confused at times.) Radio-Okapi report did in fact broach the issue of the strange 3-day stay...

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1) Dollar plummets against Congolese Franc; 2) Row over phantom polling stations; and 3) Small tribal war in "Chine"

1) Dollar plummets against Congolese FrancElectoral campaigns have been ravenously gobbling up Congolese Francs--what with MP candidates rounding up passersby in the streets of their constituencies and handing them money and other crazy expenses related to their campaigns (buying beers to bar patrons, distributing.t-shirts, campaign flyers, etc.).This has resulted in the Congo Democratic Franc (CDF) turning into a hot commodity for "cambistes" (street money changers) and Asian & Chinese shopkeepers. Shopkeepers are shunning these days the dollar,...

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Etienne Tshisesekedi has taken leave of his senses: he proclaims himself president and calls for violence on Tuesday, November 8

In an eerie telephone interview in Lingala with pro-opposition RLTV anchor Eliezer Ntumba in the night of Sunday, November 6, Etienne Tshisekedi brazenly called his UDPS supporters to resort to violence on Tuesday, November 8,  at noon sharp (Kinshasa Time), and simultaneously in Kananga, Kinshasa, Lubumbashi and Mbuji-Mayi. That Tuesday, UDPS militants are to storm prisons in those locations to help jailed UDPS militants in a mass jailbreak. Tshisekedi claimed he'd already been chosen by the majority of the Congolese people and, hence, the...

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Pro-Kabila Maniema Gov Pascal Tutu foots airfare bills for stranded UDPS leader Tshisekedi and his campaign team

Congolese media have just reported this evening that Maniema Gov Pascal Tutu, a card-carrying member of pro-Kabila PPRD parry, has booked one-way commercial airline tickets to Kinshasa for stranded UDPS leader and presidential candidate Etienne Tshisekedi, his wife and political aide Maman Marthe, and his 7- or so strong campaign team managers. The prospects of Thisekedi's planned Mexican standoff with incumbent Joseph Kabila have thus dramatically dimmed these past 48 hours as legitimate questions are now being raised as to how he could face the...

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Etienne Tshisesekedi has taken leave of his senses: he proclaims himself president and calls for violence on Tuesday, November 8

In an eerie telephone interview in Lingala with pro-opposition RLTV anchor Eliezer Ntumba in the night of Sunday, November 6, Etienne Tshisekedi brazenly called his UDPS supporters to resort to violence on Tuesday, November 8,  at noon sharp (Kinshasa Time), and simultaneously in Kananga, Kinshasa, Lubumbashi and Mbuji-Mayi. That Tuesday, UDPS militants are to storm prisons in those locations to help jailed UDPS militants in a mass jailbreak. Tshisekedi claimed he'd already been chosen by the majority of the Congolese people and, hence, the...

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Pro-Kabila Maniema Gov Pascal Tutu foots airfare bills for stranded UDPS leader Tshisekedi and his campaign team

Congolese media have just reported this evening that Maniema Gov Pascal Tutu, a card-carrying member of pro-Kabila PPRD parry, has booked one-way commercial airline tickets to Kinshasa for stranded UDPS leader and presidential candidate Etienne Tshisekedi, his wife and political aide Maman Marthe, and his 7- or so strong campaign team managers. The prospects of Thisekedi's planned Mexican standoff with incumbent Joseph Kabila have thus dramatically dimmed these past 48 hours as legitimate questions are now being raised as to how he could face the...

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Pro-Kabila Maniema Gov Pascal Tutu foots airfare bills for stranded UDPS leader Tshisekedi and his campaign team

Congolese media have just reported this evening that Maniema Gov Pascal Tutu, a card-carrying member of pro-Kabila PPRD parry, has booked one-way commercial airline tickets to Kinshasa for stranded UDPS leader and presidential candidate Etienne Tshisekedi, his wife and political aide Maman Marthe, and his 7- or so strong campaign team managers. The prospects of Thisekedi's planned Mexican standoff with incumbent Joseph Kabila have thus dramatically dimmed these past 48 hours as legitimate questions are now being raised as to how he could face the...

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Etienne Tshisesekedi has taken leave of his senses: he proclaims himself president and calls for violence on Tuesday, November 8

In an eerie telephone interview in Lingala with pro-opposition RLTV anchor Eliezer Ntumba in the night of Sunday, November 6, Etienne Tshisekedi brazenly called his UDPS supporters to resort to violence on Tuesday, November 8,  at noon sharp (Kinshasa Time), and simultaneously in Kananga, Kinshasa, Lubumbashi and Mbuji-Mayi. That Tuesday, UDPS militants are to storm prisons in those locations to help jailed UDPS militants in a mass jailbreak. Tshisekedi claimed he'd already been chosen by the majority of the Congolese people and, hence, the...

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From bizarre to outright uncanny: 1) Etienne Tshisekedi is stuck in Kindu; and 2) Pro-Kabila daily L’Avenir warns own camp to brace for massive post-electoral invalidations of elected MPs

1) Etienne Tshisekedi is stuck in KinduThe electoral campaign unfolding in the DRC seems to be sliding from bizarre to outright uncanny. News reports allege today that Etienne Tshisekedi is stuck in Kindu, the provincial capital of Maniema. His only way to get back to Kinshasa would be to be given a seat on one of MONUSCO flights on humanitarian grounds.Tshisekedi had chartered an 11-seat Grumman executive jet (including 3 crewmembers) from Allengiancia Air South Africa for 9 days. The time of the contract with the airline having run out, Allengiancia...

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1) UDPS Secretary General Jacquemain Shabani sanctioned for "Gross Misconduct" & 2) Kengo's official free campaign message aired

1) UDPS Secretary General Jacquemain Shabani sanctioned for "Gross Misconduct"Once again, crisis struck at the top of UDPS organization thisThursday, November 17--eleven days in the run-up to the generalelections. The head of UDPS "Commission Nationale de Discipline"--theparty's disciplinary commission--read a statement broadcast on TV andradio announcing that Secretary General Jacquemain Shabani had justbeen sanctioned for "gross misconduct" ("faute grave").The discplinary commission alleged that Shabani failed to follow up onthe situation of...

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