A series of attacks last week in DR Congo’s capital Kinshasa may have appeared somewhat comical, with a band of young men raiding the national television wielding sticks and machetes.

But observers say they were a smokescreen of the agitation that is building up against President Joseph Kabila as his last constitutional term nears the end.

For the region and beyond, propping up President Kabila appears the best option. In the absence of viable successors, the alternatives — an ouster or the emergence of an unlikely successor — could reverse recent gains made to pacify the vast mineral-rich country.

Should they choose to support him, it will be the second time they are doing so after the highly contested 2011 elections that nearly every observer concluded was anything but free and fair. For this, Étienne Tshisekedi, who came close to unseating Mr Kabila, remains under state watch.

Dr Kasaija Phillip Apuuli, an expert on the Great Lakes region, says the region is caught between the proverbial rock and hard place as it confronts the choice of backing President Kabila for a third term and dealing with the consequences or waiting for the leader a likely warped political process will produce, who could still be Mr Kabila.

“Who is the alternative? Kabila is perceived as someone who has managed to hold the country together in spite of the numerous challenges,” Dr Kasaija said.

The choice to back President Kabila will be especially tough for the East African region, as he has appeared to draw away from his counterparts in preference for the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) and Europe, a decision Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni has protested bitterly.

At a joint summit of SADC and the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region, which he chairs, Mr Museveni said DR Congo’s problems over the last half century have comprised, among others, “having a Euro-centric foreign policy and completely ignoring the Great Lakes Region under the belief that as long as European powers and the USA are supportive of what the Congo Government is doing (right or wrong), they did not have to bother with the region.”

Yet even this may not keep him away necessarily. According to Dr Kasaija, Uganda’s security interests along the western border have inevitably compelled the leadership to establish working relations with their Congolese counterparts, which they would be keen to strengthen with someone they already know.

On Monday, December 30, 2013, the national television, the airport and a military base were scenes of deadly clashes as the Congolese army attempted to repulse a group associated with Joseph Mukungubila, a losing candidate in the 2006 polls and an outspoken critic of the president.

The group armed with sticks, machetes and light weapons said their aim was to free the country “from the slavery of the Rwandan” – a not-so-veiled reference to President Kabila who, until recently, was constantly criticised for leaning towards Rwanda, where he honed his military skills.

Farther from Kinshasa, related attacks were reported in the provinces of Maniema and Katanga, where Kabila comes from and ideally his political base, all of which, for a moment, raised questions over the fate of an ongoing international effort to rid the volatile east of the country of armed militias that have spawned instability across the Great Lakes region.

The attacks followed political conflict in South Sudan, ethno-religious clashes in the troubled Central African Republic, and grenade blasts in Mombasa, Kenya.

Taken together, these events appear to have eroded the tenuous stability the region had hoped to build upon in the New Year, especially following the silencing of guns in the restive North Kivu region in eastern DRC.

The coup attempt, as some have interpreted the attacks, was further compounded by the death of Col Mamadou N’Dala in the battlefield on January 2 as he led an offensive against the Allied Democratic Forces, a DR Congo-based Ugandan rebel group that has been fighting to oust President Museveni from power for at least 15 years now.

Col N’Dala was highly regarded for leading the Congolese army operations against the M23 rebels last October and November.

His death is seen as a setback to the UN-led campaign to rid Congo of armed groups, who will bear the full pressure of his passing, according to Martin Kobler, the Special Representative of the UN Secretary General in the DRC.