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 challenge of running this sprawling and (by his own description) ill-governed country if he can't even plan and run his own first presidential campaign.

What's more, this "bailout" by Gov Tutu has brought to the fore the issue of Tshisekedi's Limete residence, which belongs to the Congolese state and where the UDPS leader and his family have been living rent-free for several decades. Political enemies are now showcasing this rent-free occupancy or squatting and the Kindu debacle as characteristics of a profiteering politician who's been living since 1960 on government hand-outs and perks--and hence unfit for office!