by Juakali Kambale – SANF 06 No 9
At least five candidates have registered to contest the presidency of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in elections set for April while about 300 political parties are expected to participate in the polls.
As preparations for DRC’s first democratic elections in over 40 years swing into gear, the country’s interior ministry announced that it has so far registered some 300 political parties keen on taking part in the polls.
According to the interior ministry, voting will be split into three, with local government elections taking place in March, and parliamentary and presidential elections scheduled for April, with a presidential run-off in June, if necessary.
The starting date for the national elections has been set as 29 April, and the process is expected to take a minimum of four days.
So far nomination papers have been received from presidential candidates for the Rally for Congolese Democracy (RCD), Federalist Christian Democracy (FCD), Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC), Rally for Democracy and Social Progress (RDSP) and an independent woman candidate.
A lawyer by profession, Azarias Ruberwa has registered to contest the presidency on an RCD ticket. He is one of the four vice-presidents in the transitional government headed by President Joseph Kabila.
A Tutsi-Banyamulenga who hails from South Kivu province, Ruberwa is aligned to the Rwandese government, which backed his party during the bitter four-year civil war that also sucked in Uganda and three Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries opposed to a change of government by force.
The three SADC countries that came to the aid of the DRC government were Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe.
The other candidate who has filed papers with the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) is 58-year-old Pierre Pay-Pay wa Syakassighe, who has been campaigning for “rational” leadership of the DRC. He wants the Congolese to give a chance to those with experience to run the affairs of the country.
He is a former Governor of the Central Bank of the DRC and also served as minister of economics and finance under the late President Mobutu Sese Seko.
Pierre Pay-Pay wa Syakassighe hails from North Kivu province in eastern DRC.
He announced his candidature for the position of president in December 2005 and is regarded as the strongest challenger to Kabila because of his vast experience in government and access to resources.
His party, the FCD, has formed a coalition with 17 other parties and they will contest the election under the banner of the Coalition of Congolese Democrats (CODECO).
The MLC will be represented by its leader in the presidential race, 43-year-old Jean-Pierre Bemba. A son-in-law of the late Mobutu, Bemba is another one of DRC’s vice-presidents and is responsible for the economic and finance portfolio
Veteran politician Etienne Tshisekedi, 75, will also hope to use his vast experience to sway the vote in his favour. He announced his intention to contest the polls on 2 January after more than two years of boycotting the peace process.
His RDSP party is popular in Kinshasa and in the eastern and western Kasai provinces.
He had previously campaigned against the electoral process but failed to garner support, and in December the Congolese voters overwhelmingly endorsed the holding of elections under a new Constitution.
There is so far a single female candidate for the presidency. She is Justine Kasavubu, daughter of the first post-independence president, Joseph Kasavubu.
She has served as a minister for civil administration and was ambassador to Belgium during the previous administration of Joseph Kabila’s father, Laurent Kabila.
The incumbent president’s People’s Party for Reconstruction and Democracy (PPRD) is yet to choose a candidate and has not set a date for primary elections, although Kabila is expected to get his party’s nomination.
Kabila, 35, is widely tipped to win the national election should he win his party’s ticket. He is credited with engineering the current peace that prevails in the country. He has led the DRC since the death of his father in February 2001.
The new Constitution limits the powers of the president, gives the country’s regions more autonomy, and strengthens the judicial system. The political system will now be decentralised, with provincial administrations responsible for local decision-making and controlling 40 percent of public funds. The number of provinces has been increased from 11 to 26.
The presidential tenure is now limited to two five-year terms while the minimum age of the presidential candidates has been reduced from 45 to 30 years.
The elected president nominates a prime minister from the parliamentary majority.
