48 in June, President Joseph Kabila signals a double clean break: 1)
firstly, a generational break; and 2) secondly, a break with Congolese
politics as usual. 3) But more important, Kabila has arguably
jumpstarted his last presidential term in a dramatic fashion.
1) In the run-up to the appointment of the new prime minister, pundits
of all stripes, who speculated about the profile and even provided a
bevy of names of those that stood a chance of being appointed as
premier, didn't even once mention the name of the "respected financial
expert" (BBC) who was appointed yesterday as prime minister.
Matata Ponyo was completely under the radar.
Two weeks ago, when I mentioned Matata's name as a possible prime
minister to one of those talking heads, he laughed out loud, and
condescendingly dismissed my suggestion out of hand.
The pundit argued that Matata may be suffering from post-concussion
syndrome. As a matter-of-fact, according to contemporaneous media
reports, Matata had sustained severe cranial injuries in the deadly
plane crash of mid-February at Kavumu Airport in Bukavu. Reports that
turned out to be false after all, when he promptly returned from South
Africa, where he was flown for treatment, to resume his duties.
The pundit then went on to give me a list of names of those he thought
would likely be appointed to premiership: a lineup of the usual
suspects--all of whom born before 1960, the year of the country's
independence.
Admittedly the appointment of Matata Ponyo is therefore significant
since it represents a generational break.
2) In dismissing my suggestion, the same pundit also said that Matata
Ponyo had four additional disadvantages:
a) He was from Maniema, an "insignificant province." A strange
assessment indeed, coming from a seasoned political analyst no less.
(That tiny and sparsely populated province wields a lot of influence
since both the mothers of the First Lady and of the Prez hail from
Maniema.) This is what is called "geopolitics" in Congolese political
parlance: a quota system whereby political appointments are
necessarily made according to provincial, regional, or ethnic balance;
b) Though a card-carrying member of Kabila's PPRD, Matata isn't a
diehard seasoned political operative (he didn't even run for a seat in
the National Assembly), focussing instead mostly on his financial and
budgetary expertise as well as his academic pursuits (he's also an
assistant professor of economics at the Université de Kinshasa);
c) Kabila would want to share the spoils of his re-election with other
political parties making up the Presidential Majority (acronymed "MP"
in French).
As the Presidential Majority was pegging another PPRD member on the
slot of the National Assembly's speakership (Aubin Minaku), it would
"logically" follow that the prime minister should come from another
party in that alliance--and this, according to the strength of that
party in Parliament. Thus, still according to the same pundit, the
prime minister had therefore to come from the party "Mouvement Social
pour le Renouveau" (MSR)--the second strongest party of the
Presidential Majority in the National Assembly, after the PPRD; and,
last and not least,
d) Matata Ponyo is charisma-challenged and at times comes across as
outright shy. Now, according to this line of reasoning, the prime
minister ought to be infused with enough personal charisma in order to
be able to corral the fractious, contentious, and ego-boosted
politicians in the National Assembly and the Congolese at large so as
to carry out any meaningful change in a country where anything is a
priority, or to make a dent in the well-entrenched prevalent Mobutuist
neoclientelism.
This pundit has obviously not taken the full measure of Matata Ponyo
who, in his 2-year tenure as finance minister, has obtained
achievements measurable by positive metrics where others had pitifully
failed.
According to his BBC profile drawn hours after his appointment as
prime minister, Matata Ponyo is "credited with stabilising the
country's economy" and "ran a $12bn debt reduction agreement with
international creditors, which was seen as the main achievement of
President Kabila's first term in office."
If anything, this took brass cojones, tough leadership and personal
charisma--particularly as Matata's boss, erstwhile Premier Adolphe
Muzito, was a spendthrift who has recently even been accused of
massive theft.
Maybe this pundit is even unaware of Matata's Branhamism faith--the
only flaw I see in the man--which makes his doggedness borders on
abrasiveness and outright lack of humor. Item: Two years ago, shortly
after Matata was appointed finance minister, soukouss star Papa Wemba
made the mistake of praising him in one song of his then freshly
released album "Notre Père" (Congolese musicians often pull this kind
of stunt with most public figures in the hope of getting money).
Instead of basking in that praise, Matata threatened to drag Papa
Wemba to court if he didn't go back to the recording studio and remove
his good name from that "filthy" song! Matata is alleged to have only
calmed down after his contrite son confessed he was the one who'd
talked Papa Wemba into tossing his dad's name into the song...
3) Congo bashers often accuse Kabila of lacking political will; and
DRC observers speculale that he runs a parallel government--what Jason
Stearns calls the "concentric circles of power" radiating from the
Prez, then the second circle from his immediate family and entourage,
and so on; each one of those rings generating its own concentric
circles!
Well, maybe by having this once the moxie of appointing a non-nonsense
man of the ilk of Matata as his prime minister, Kabila could be
telegraphing to his cumbersome entourage he's jumpstarting his
presidency, as I said. He could have reasoned that if Matata could
pull what he did right under the nose of a kleptocrat like former
Premier Muzito, maybe--just maybe!--the guy could also scramble and
even smash the marbles of those Stearnsian concentric circles.
Incidentally, critics of Kabila--including the US Embassy in a cable
leaked by Wikileaks --claimed that the late Augustin Katumba Mwanke,
who uncannily died in February in the crash of the aircraft aboard
which Matata was also a passenger, was the "éminence grise" of Kabila.
Uncannily, Mwanke's untimely demise at the threshold of Kabila's
second term might turn out to be quite auspicious for the
Prez--unleashing the president's political renewal and inventiveness.
Some people think there seems to be a sea change happening deep in
Kabila's psyche: an obsession with his legacy. They claim you could
even pinpoint with some accuracy when this change started to be
perceptible. By July 2010, Kinois--usually cynical--who've picked up
on those vibes, had given him the Kikongo language moniker of
"sisa-bidimbu": one who leaves symbols in her wake!
If by appointing Augustin Matata Ponyo Mapon as prime minister is all
about leaving an enduring legacy behind, then many kudos to Kabila for
appointing him as prime minister--and Godspeed!
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