wrapped up his information mandate at 11:00 this morning with a press
conference at Venus Hotel, in downtown Kinshasa.
Mwando's press briefing comes hard on the heels of the audience he had
yesterday with Kabila at the latter's office at the Palais de la
Nation. During the short audience with Kabila, Mwando handed to the
Prez his final report on his information mandate that consisted in
identifying the parliamentary majority (from which will stem the
oncoming Prime Minister), paying heed to the opposition's observations
and recommendations, and consulting with civil society members as well
as experts and "extra-parliamentary" politicos (such as former
vice-presidents Azarias Ruberwa and Arthur Z'Hahidi Ngoma) in order to
register their inputs on governance and the profile of the those
expected to fill cabinet positions.
Mwando has to be commended for accomplishing his mission in just 16
days, a far shorter period than the 30 days mandated by the
Constitution.
Mwando started out by decrying the fact that shameless and heedless
ambitious pols kept bombarding him with their resumes--most of which
highlighted their "tribal membership"--despite his prior warning and
reminder that his task was only limited to identifying a parliamentary
majority.
He then laid out what he called the "contours" and the "methodology"
of his mission.
The political consultations, he said, were carried out in 2 stages:
1) With parliamentarians of the majority and their independent
associates within the National Assembly. With this group, Mwando
asserted, the task was easy enough, as it was only question of their
confirming by signing their "adherence" to the "charter" binding this
group to Kabila's program so-called "modernity revolution" along its
main axes and indicators: social improvement, economic development,
security reform, governance, etc.;
2) With opposition pols. This group comprised 3 subgroups: a) Those
willing to compromise with Kabila on his program. Some in this group
even joined the majority (this is the case of François Mwamba
Tshishimbi, former secretary general of MLC expelled from his party on
the accusation of attempting to replace Jean-Pierre Bemba as its
chairman); b) Those expressing the need of creating a new majority
within parliament (a view voiced by Senate President and former
presidential candidate Léon Kengo wa Dondo); and c) Those demanding
that a national dialogue be opened to resolve the "political crisis"
and re-establish "political legitimacy" (memo sent to Charles Mwando
Simba by Etienne Tshisekedi's UDPS).
As could be expected, Mwando gave short shrift to the last two propositions.
In dismissing Kengo's suggestion, Mwando explained that this kind of
search for a new parliamentary configuration could only take place had
Kabila's coalition not achieved a clear majority in parliament. In
this event, the Prime Minister would issue from the opposition. This,
he said, was the schema of "cohabitation" in France. In the current
situation, said Mwando, such an arrangement isn't warranted.
As for the so-called "political crisis," Mwando forcefully asserted
that this "crisis obsession" only existed in the minds of some
Kinshasa politicians.
With the close of Mwando's mandate, the ball is now in the camp of the
Supreme Court, which still has to confirm the newly elected MPs and
determine the constitutionality of the new rules and regulations voted
by the National Assembly, prior to Kabila appointing the new Prime
Minister.
0 comments:
Post a Comment