partisan vote on the constitutional revision allowing a one-round
presidential election, both lower and higher houses of DRC Parliament
convened this Tuesday, March 15, to open the March 2011parliamentary
session--the last session of the current legislature.
This session is the "mother of all parliamentary sessions" as it will
deal with the electoral law and calendar.
The two successive separate formal openings took place at the "Palais
du Peuple" (the People's Palace), the seat of Parliament, in the
Lingwala commune, in the presence of the diplomatic corps, the UN
Secretary General's Representative in Kinshasa and the Prime Minister
as well as police and military top brass.
Both ceremonies featured a delegation of Gabon's National Assembly led
by its speaker, who also delivered a short speech after the address by
DRC National Assembly Speaker Évariste Boshab in which the Gabonese
official lauded what he called the "parliamentary diplomacy" linking
the two countries.
In his keynote address, Speaker Boshab decried "lies" used by some
opposition politicians as a "passport" to access foreign forums. Among
those "lies," Boshab mentioned the rumors now being peddled by
Kinshasa grapevine of Radio-Trottoir channels according to which the
ruling majority was thinking of jamming into the new electoral law an
"age limit" that would bar "sexagenarians and septuagenarians" from
running for office--a provision that would have uncannily been
tailor-made for opposition leader Étienne Tshisekedi, who's over 70
years-old !
The speech by Léon Kengo wa Dondo, the Senate President, was less
partisan. A respected opposition figure, Kengo also mentioned the
restive situation rippling through the Maghreb and the Mideast,
warning that democracy isn't to be taken for granted but needs
constant adjustments to the will of the people. But Kengo also
condemned the abortive coup of last month against the Raïs.
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