by Joseph Ngwawi – SANF 06 No 99
The Congolese people have given Joseph Kabila another chance to continue with economic and political reforms that have so far ensured a smooth transition from war to stability in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
According to final results released by the DRC’s Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) on 15 November, the youthful Kabila amassed 58.05 percent of the more than 16.2 million Congolese who voted in the 29 October presidential election second round.
“Mr. Kabila, Kabange Joseph, is elected as president of the Democratic Republic of Congo,” read the statement from the IEC.
Under Congolese law, these results must be certified by the Supreme Court, but the certification is generally considered a formality.
The inauguration of the president-elect is set for 10 December.
Kabila, 35, got 9,436,779 votes against 6,819,822 for rival, Jean-Pierre Bemba.
In a statement shortly after the announcement of the results by IEC, Kabila called on the Congolese to work towards reconciliation and the rebuilding of the country.
The president-elect acknowledged the mammoth task of bringing together the various forces on the DRC political landscape to work for the betterment of living standards in the country.
“Together we must complete the process of building national reconciliation, develop work ethics and banish all negative values such as xenophobia, tribalism, intolerance, exclusion, hatred, corruption and injustice in all its forms, to make Democratic Republic of Congo a prosperous country,” said Kabila.
The DRC has just emerged from a bitter civil war, which left more than a third of the vast central African country outside the control of Kinshasa.
The four-year civil war, which ended in 2002 with the signing of a peace agreement by the warring parties, had threatened to escalate into a regional war after drawing in the DRC’s Southern African Development Community (SADC) neighbours, Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe, who fought to expel a march on Kinshasa by rebels backed by Uganda and Rwanda.
Although a fragile peace has been holding since 2002, there have been sporadic pockets of violence in parts of the country, particularly in the diamond-rich Katanga province.
“Together we can share the same destiny. We must harness all our resources to rebuild our country,” Kabila said.
Bemba had not responded to the announcement of the results by 16 November, although the police and United Nations peacekeepers were on full alert in the capital, Kinshasa and other parts of the DRC to ensure there was no eruption of violence.
The presidential election run-off was held in accordance with the DRC Constitution which stipulates that a second round of polls must be called pitting the top two candidates in the event that no presidential candidate garners at least 50-plus-one percent of the votes cast in the first round.
Kabila could only manage 44.81 percent of the votes cast in the 30 July first-round polls against 20.03 percent for Bemba.
This will be Kabila’s second term in office, but the first time he has been democratically elected. During the first term he was handpicked to take over the leadership of the country following the death of his father, Laurent, in 2001.
Although not many people then gave him the slightest chance to manage the volatile situation in the DRC, the young Kabila acquitted himself well in building vital bridges among Congolese of various persuasions and in rebuilding an economy battered by years of instability.
Thanks to an economic stabilisation programme initiated by Kabila in May 2001 – a few months after coming to power – the DRC has achieved relative economic success over the past few years.
The stabilisation programme has reduced inflation, renewed mining activity and increased foreign direct investment.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF)-backed reforms included liberalisation of petroleum prices and exchange rates and adoption of fiscal and monetary policy discipline. The country’s annualised inflation rate, once one of the highest in the world, declined from more than 500 percent in 2000 to around seven percent in 2003.
The country has since June 2002 been able to access credit from the IMF and the World Bank, while other bilateral donors have pledged to fund development and reconstruction projects.
The Paris Club also granted the DRC Highly Indebted Poor Country status in July 2003, a development that has helped alleviate Kinshasa’s external sovereign debt burden and freed funds for economic development.
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth was over five percent in 2005, with an estimated total GDP of US$7.2 billion and per capita GDP of US$120.
