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DRC takes stock of growing democratic space

Saturday May 02 2020
By PATRICK ILUNGA

On April 24, 30 years ago, DR Congo then known as Zaire and under Mobutu Sese Seko, moved from a single party to multi-party state.

Three decades later, democracy is still under construction. The country has only changed leadership hands peacefully once, when current President Felix Tshisekedi won a competitive election in 2018 running as an opposition candidate.

In fact, this was the only time in the country’s history that it had ever happened.

Even that election wasn't perfect, and it saw some Western countries initially refuse to endorse it.

Hubert Kabasubabu, a political analyst and former governor of the former province of Kasai Occidental says the country still has challenges running as a democracy.

He says the “head-on collisions between governing political groups, confusion in the partisan interpretation and exploitation of the constitution, institutional friction" have combined to create chaos.

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Speaking to The EastAfrican, he said; “They give a glimpse of a cloudy sky over our democracy which is still under construction," that the path to democracy must be perpetually reviewed.

Often cited is the friction in the aftermath of the December 2018 elections. President Tshisekedi bickered with his predecessor on key appointments, eventually reaching a deal, months later.

March of Hope

Alain-Parfait Ngulungu, a political scientist and researcher at the University of Kinshasa, says elections alone don't define democracy.

“Democracy is not obtained only by elections. Democracy is a process that requires time and patience,” he said.

But to ordinary citizens, the country has come a long way. The emergence of opposition leaders like Etienne Tshisekedi in the 1980s, the “March of Hope” in 1992, when Christians were shot dead when demanding the resumption of the National Sovereign Conference, which sought more civil liberties.

Then there were the anti-Joseph Kabila protests in 2016 and 2017 which were crushed at a cost of lives of several Congolese.

Under Mobutu, elections were sporadic and he won all by more than 90 per cent.

DR Congo only knew free elections by universal suffrage in 2006. There were elections in 2011 before they were delayed until 2018.

Kabasubabu says, “It is under the regime of Joseph Kabila that construction of the fundamental systemic materials of democracy was initiated,” he argued.

He also argues that the work-study regime by Tshisekedi is far from being “the phase of consolidation of democracy, because it also has its own contradictions: Corruption, and the absorption of the State budget by the political oligarchy to the detriment of social needs and development.”

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