DRC Elections 2011 Watch: 1) MLC congress; 2) 30 million registered voters; 3) Vital Kamhere’s AVK platform; 4) Disappearing act of a Governor & reappearance of his brother’s hologram; 5) Senate Prez Kengo wa Dondo's political platform

1) Jean-Pierre Bemba’s MLC opens 2-day party congress in Kinshasa

MLC Congress participants

Kinshasa, July 22

(Credits)

Friday July 22. Thomas Luhaka, MLC secretary general, opens in Kin a 2-day second congress of the party of Jean-Pierre Bemba, former warlord and an inmate at the jail of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. Party representatives came from various provinces and Kinshasa. The congress will choose a new MLC president to serve for a 5-year term. Observers wonder whether anyone would have the gall to bid for the MLC presidency. François Mwamba, the MLC leader who had attempted to vie for Bemba’s position, has been kicked out of the party. If MLC persists in this stance, it would end up not having a candidate in the upcoming presidential election as their outgoing president's trial is dragging on at the ICC.

2) 30,600,000 registered voters

Kinshasa, Saturday February 26, 2011

Members of CENI at their swearing in by DRC Supreme Court

Rev Daniel Ngoy Mulunda (Pres.), Prof. Jacques Ndjoli (V-P), and Mathieu Mpita (Rapporteur)

(Credits)

Sunday July 10. Rev Daniel Ngoy Mulunda, president of the independent national electoral commission (CENI), announces that registration lists show that 30,600,000 voters have registered to vote in the upcoming general elections in November—that is, 98% of the targeted 31,000,000 voters. The rosters will then be “cleaned out” prior to final publication.

Wednesday July 20. As I said in the previous election watch, the CENI and Rev Daniel Ngoy Mulunda have become the cornerstone of Tshisekedi’s UDPS in its urban-guerrilla “rejectionist” strategy of this electoral cycle. At a press briefing, UDPS secretary general Jacquemain Shabani charged, once again, that Rev Ngoy is “partisan” and, hence, untrustworthy: “Reverend Ngoy has demonstrated to us that we shouldn’t trust him, because he’s partisan, and everyone knows that. He is a cofounder of the PPRD, he’s close to Kabila.” Jacquemain also wants that two UDPS experts participate in the “cleaning out” of the voters’ registration lists. Barring that, his party will continue its campaign of disobedience.

 Jacquemain Shabani

UDPS secretary general

At a press briefing

Kinshasa, Wednesday July 20, 2011

Photo: John Bompengo

(Credits)

3) Former Speaker Vital Kamerhe launches “AVK” platform

Vital Kamerhe

Tuesday June 21, 2011

Photo: John Bompango

(Credits)

Tuesday June 21. Vital Kamerhe launches his political platform called “Alternance Vital Kamerhe” (AVK)—which means that he sees himself as power alternation to the powers-that-be; which also means that he’s chosen a direct confrontation with Etienne Tshisekedi who thinks he should be the only viable replacement for the incumbent president. Some politicians way out of the mainstream have joined this platform, including MP Ne Muanda Nsemi, leader of the banned Bundu dia Mayala (formerly known as Bundu dia Kongo), a separatist millenarian cargo-cult sect of the Bakongo ethnic group.

4) Disappearing act of a Governor and reappearance of his brother’s hologram

Friday July 22. Two major newspapers of Kinshasa publish long-winded editorials on this day to deny the rumors spreading like wildfire through the Congolese blogosphere that Moïse Katumbi, governor of Katanga Province and president of TP Mazembe football club, has left the country for good. Both L’Avenir and Le Potentiel insist Katumbi is on vacation—without saying where. The editorial of Le Potentiel showcases Katumbi’s achievements as governor—including the revenues his province has been able to contribute under his leadership into the government’s budget, to the tune of “at least 51%” of the national budget. Le Potentiel also thinks that rumors about Katumbi’s exile being spread will in the end turn out to be “un coup d’épée dans l’eau”—literally, a sword thrust into water; in other words, or a total waste of effort. L’Avenir is even more indignant at the idea that Katumbi would leave the country on tiptoe. The paper repeats that Katumbi is on vacation and will soon make a "resounding comeback."

Well, the problem with these editorialists is that the whereabouts of Gov Katumbi are unknown. Shortly after the celebrations of the 51st anniversary of Congo’s independence that were held this year in Lubumbashi, Katanga provincial capital, the governor just "vanished," so to speak. In May, he said he wouldn't be seeking reelection and would retire from politics altogether. And in mid-June, he had a nasty row with his political archenemy Jean-Claude Kayombo.

It’s against this backdrop that suddenly appears the “hologram” of Katumbi’s old brother, the infamous millionaire Raphaël Katoto Katebe, speaking as the president of his party Union des Libéraux Démocrates (ULD). Katoto Katebe aka Raphaël Soriano used to bankroll renegade Gen Laurent Nkunda’s murderous bands, as documented in the 2008 UN Final Report of the Group of Experts on the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The involvement of Katoto Katebe in Congo’s extreme politics once forced Katumbi to briefly go into exile in Zambia.

Katoto Katebe spoke to Radio Okapi on Wednesday July 20, from Belgium where he’s in exile. He was  denying in the interview that his party had joined Kamerhe’s AVK party cartel. “To this day my party hasn’t signed any political agreement whatsoever with anyone,” he said, “either directly or indirectly through its president, who is me.”

Asked why he wouldn’t just return and manage his party in the Congo, Katoto said: “For several years now I’ve been expressing my wish to head back home, but up to now I haven’t yet received that authorization.”

Raphaël Katoto Katebe

 Erstwhile financier of renegade Gen Laurent Nkunda

Katanga Governor's old brother

President of the Union des Libéraux Démocrates (ULD)

5) Senate Prez to launch new political platform

 

French Ambassador Pierre Jacquemot decorating Kengo wa Dondo with the Légion d’Honneur

Kinshasa, May 4, 2011

(Credits)

Le Soft claims that Léon Kengo wa Dongo, former Prime minister of Mobutu and current Senate president, is planning to launch a new political platform at the Stade des Martyrs on July 24, in the presence of his old buddy, Cardinal Laurent Mosengwo! The platform is called the Union des Forces de Changement (UFC), which will further erode the constituency of the MLC, as Kengo hails from Equateur Province too. Just as Kamerhe’s AVK, Kengo’s platform also intends to be a “credible political, economic, and social alternative in our country.”