Understanding the DRC’s Governance Structure

This transcript is from a CSIS podcast published on June 13, 2024. Listen to the podcast here.

Mvemba Phezo Dizolele: Welcome to Into Africa. My name is Mvemba Phezo Dizolele, I'm a senior fellow and the director of the Africa program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. This is a podcast where we talk everything Africa. Politics, economics, security and culture. Welcome.

The DRC, the Democratic Republic of Congo, has continued to make the news for a number of reasons. There is continued conflict protracted in eastern DRC provinces. We have, as of late on May 19th, an event that has been described as a coup where a fellow named Christian Malanga with 30 to 40 of his associate attacked the residence of former Vice Prime Minister and Minister of the Economy, Vital Kamerhe, where they exchanged fire with his guard resulting in 44 people being killed. And then they laid siege on the Palais de la Nation where the President, President Felix Tshisekedi works. Eventually, Christian Malanga himself was killed and his associates were arrested.

This was a sort of a bizarre event where we saw a motley crew of young men trying to take over the seat of power, really, where the President works. But this happened at 4:30 in the morning. Eventually, as of today, nobody seemed to make sense of it all. But equally importantly is that the DRC has finally, this past May, appointed a new government. It's taken six months to appoint a new government. President Tshisekedi, we will remember was elected last December for a second term, a five-year term. We expected that the government will follow immediately because the President has a coalition behind him called Union Sacred. But he took six months to appoint a new government. This is a government of 54 ministers. It's slightly less than the previous government which had 57 ministers. But one has to ask a number of questions. Why a country like the DRC, a president who has a majority, a president who is a coalition behind him will take 5-6 months to appoint a new government? And then of course, what does this mean? What are the people's expectations for this new government, particularly as we see a lot of the same people being reappointed albeit in various posts?

But we also see that the conflict in the east is continue, they've been tremendous tension between the DRC and Rwanda, a lot of tension between President Tshisekedi himself and President Paul Kagame of Rwanda. So a lot of questions that we have today. And joining us from Kinshasa to help us make sense of this development in the Democratic Republic of Congo is Fred Bauma, a human rights activist, who is the senior fellow and the Executive Secretary of Ebuteli, a research institute based in Kinshasa, what- that happened to be affiliated as well with the Center of International Cooperation at New York University and a part of the Congo Research Group.

Fred Bauma, it's a pleasure, welcome to Into Africa.

Fred Bauma: Thank you, Mvemba, for having me.

Mvemba Phezo Dizolele: We're happy that you can join us today, of course, Kinshasa is a far away place, but also a place that always captures the imagination of the world. Why did it take five to six months to have a new government in the Democratic Republic when we know that the President was elected last December? Why did it take so long?

Fred Bauma: Well, that's a good question. Initially, w- we were expecting government to take less than than six months maybe to... we could hope to have a government relatively quickly because after the election in end of December, Presidential Tshisekedi coalition, the Union Sacred, won a very large majority of seats in Parliament. I think today the the number of opponents in the Parliament amount to less than 50 MP's out of 500. So you would think because the majority is clear that it would be relatively easy to form a new government. But the problem is Union Sacred is not... it's not a block, a coherent block, it's a, it's a mix of many coalitions, more that you call Group Ma Politic here, so the political party that come together and form a coalition and want to the election. And those coalition is part of a larger coalition called Union Sacred. So it takes... it took months to have negotiation to determine how to distribute seats among each member of the coalition. And within the coalition among every political party. And these are a lot of... this take a lot of time because you have to manage expectation, you have to manage ambitions of so many people.

But then when we saw the government, it looks like the President has a lot of influence actually in constituting that government. So you will, we will expect it to take time because of those negotiation, but then it seemed like the President didn't really take into account all those negotiation and actually waiting and appoint people who are rather close to him. So I don't know what will be the correct answer, maybe to try to assess the influence of every one of his allies and I think that is continuing because there is, in addition to the government, of course we we have the Bureau of the Senate that has to be formed and we just have the National Assembly. So I think it would take a lot of months of negotiation into the fill key position in, in, in different institution among key allies of the President.

Mvemba Phezo Dizolele: You said the President has a lot of influence. Did that influence not help? Why did he take still... If he has so much influence, I understand that this is a coalition of Group Ma Politic as you call it, meaning it's a mosaic of organizations coming together. But they've worked together before. This is not a new coalition. They work in the last government, in fact it's that coalition that helped President Tshisekedi win himself from the influence of his predecessor, Joseph Kabila. Did this influence play any major role or is the President's influence itself being challenged by leaders, as they call in Congo, les authoritie morale, from these other groups?

Fred Bauma: Mm-hmm. That's a good question. I think to understand it, we need to talk a little bit about the history of that coalition and how President Tshisekedi came into forming that large coalition. We should remember that when Tshisekedi came to power in 2019, he didn't have a majority in the Parliament, so it took him almost a, a year to shift the majority from President Kabila to what they call now the Union Sacred. And that was done by trying by convincing key leaders, by negotiating positions, and they came with a lot of influence because they negotiated highly their shift. So the next three years, the last three years of the first term of President Tshisekedi was the time of consolidating power. And I think he went slowly because those key allies joined the government and then we had a reshuffle of the government the year before the election that brought in even some more influential people like Jean-Pierre Bemba and Vital Kamerhe and others, but they were in the government knowing that they are inside because they have their own influence.

And so the, there were important forces that could not challenge but that could, could negotiate with a higher price what they wanted. After election, what happened in my view is that President Tshisekedi consolidated his power even more than before. But the formation of the government is probably one of the key moments where he displayed that new power. So he showed clearly that he could get through it of people like Bahati, that he could put Bembe in a less... Jean-Pierre Bembe, who was a former vice president in a less interesting position in the government without any consequence. So I guess that's a risky move, of course, because you never know how people would react in the Parliament. But to be able to display that show of force, I think it's interesting for what may come after.

Mvemba Phezo Dizolele: Okay. Let's stay on that a little bit. So you said the President wielded his power could show that he has greater influence. Some of his allies from the last term, people like Modeste Lukwebo Bahati, Jean Pierre Bemba, Vital Kamerhe are still around. We see that a lot of them actually have reappeared indifferent reincarnation. Jean-Pierre Bembe is no longer Minister of Defense, but is Minister of Transportation. Vital Kamerhe, no longer in the economy, no longer Vice Prime Minister, but I understand he's going to be the President or the Speaker of the National Assembly. What happened to Modeste Bahati because he had... he has a big block, an important block in that coalition.

Fred Bauma: So Bahati Lukwebo is a very interesting character. Of course, he was... he's in the government since many years. He has one of the political party that's managed to have a lot of MPs for the third force of the majority during the last government. He still has a lot of MPs. But in this government, although he has more than 30 member of the Parliament, he didn't get any seats. He got two people in the new government but those two people are not in their key position within the government. He himself failed to run to become a speaker of the house... of the, of the National Assembly, he failed. He managed to try... he's trying to become, again, the Speaker of Senate, I'm quite certain that he will not get that one. So I think the message that is being sent to him is that they don't want him in the government and I think the key message that probably President Tshisekedi is sending to all the people around him is that nobody is indispensable and he's the only one who is the real center of power, which I think was less obvious when he came to, to power five years ago.

Mvemba Phezo Dizolele: In that case then do you expect some trouble and friction if Bahati has 30 members in the National Assembly? That's a big block.

Fred Bauma: Yes. I mean we can expect some trouble not only because of Bahati but because of many other people who are frustrated and these people include even Vital Kamerhe, who is a key ally of the President but who has two of his senior minister in the government. He has two senior minister in the government but one of them is well known is someone who has moved to Tshisekedi's party because of that. But the reaction in my view may be how they will negotiate key legislations in the Parliament, how they will negotiate the budget appropriation and things like that. And I think the member of the Parliament may continue to require to be paid like additional large and additional amounts to pass key legislation. So it may reinforce a sort of capture of the government by the parliamentarian not because they care about the need of people, but because they want to get as much benefits, a financial benefit from, from the work of the government. And it may create a sort of instability within the government, I'm sure those powerful people who are not satisfied like Bemba, like, uh, Bahati, even, even Vital, will probably try to gain more influence after a year and a half. So it's very likely that we may see some interesting political games in the, in the Parliament.

Mvemba Phezo Dizolele: You said they've been some friction between the President and his ally and former ally and now new ally, I suppose, Vital Kamerhe. You said he had two ministers in key position. I presume one is Boji Aime. Is he the one who is moved on to Tshisekedi camp and how is that affecting Kamerhe's block in the Parliament but also in the government?

Fred Bauma: So Aime Boji is Minister of Budget, which is one of the most interesting position in the the government. He was the Secretary General Vital Kamerhe's party before the government disagreement. He was just selected on Kamerhe's list. However I think that was more strategic move from Kamerhe to maintain the number of MP's of his party. But from different sources close to Kamerhe, Boji is not really considered to be an active member of UNC and I think people are expecting him at some points to launch his own political party or to move to another political party. But he is a... he is also a good friend or he has a good relationship with the President. So on paper at least, it's a position that is attributed to UNC or Vital Kamerhe, but in reality, he hold his position to be due to his relationship with the President.

Mvemba Phezo Dizolele: How big is Kamerhe's block in Parliament and how much leverage does he have? He is now the Speaker of the National Assembly, the President of the National Assembly but does he actually have a strong bloc in the Parliament?

Fred Bauma: So this par- party that is strong and solid block is UDPS. Kamerhe has-

Mvemba Phezo Dizolele: That's the, that's the President's party?

Fred Bauma: That's the President's party. And, and this is... this has been the case for all election, the President party usually win a lot of seats because there's a lot of access to a lot of resources. Kamerhe's coalition has a little bit of about 30 or 40 MPs, but he managed to build within the Union Sacred, a sort of sub coalition with other groups, they call it PCR. And I think together they have over 100 or 150 MPs. Most of them share allegiances to Kamerhe and to Tshisekedi, so it's not clear if the two are in conflict where they will move. And that... he is a very... he's very talented in building relationship among political spectrum and I think his position as Speaker of the Parliament will give him even more leverage, leverage to do so, which may serve him and his ambition, I think he's trying to position himself as one of the people who may replace Tshisekedi. That's also is a very risky move in the Combo Politic.

Mvemba Phezo Dizolele: 150 members in his block, that's a substantial amount to a number of MPs and that can generate a lot of power.

Fred Bauma: Yeah, of course. But that has to be nuanced also. So yes, if we succeed to consolidate, this block may be really powerful but UDPS will also do it best to undermine that block as it has done in the past. So yes, I would say potentially powerful but has to to consolidate that power.

Mvemba Phezo Dizolele: So that was Vital Kamerhe and his level of influence, he still continue to wield it because he's gonna manage the Parliament so I presume he get to assign people to various committees and subcommittees and various roles. The tension you described earlier between the Modeste Lukwebo Bahati and the other members of the coalition, Union Sacred, what's the cause of it?

Fred Bauma: Bahati is known to be very ambitious, not in term of him trying to have the Office of the President, I think he made clear that he doesn't want that. But in term of placing his people in key position in the Senate, in the National Assembly and in the government. But he, he also... his name is also associated with a lot of case of mismanagement in many of his former position, it's not only him. So I think at some point people like especially the current President didn't need him. He's not also the most popular... I think his key is to be organized and to be able to recruit people who can be elected. And so he can build a party. But himself is not very popular. In fact he wasn't selected in the Parliament in 2018 and I think before that he is not elected with a lot of voices and so he's not someone who may mobilize masses for any leader. And so also because the way he puts his MP, they are not always loyal to him, so they can shift easily to other forces because they are conscious that they, they, they've been elected because they were popular and they used the party as a vehicle to get into the Parliament rather than for ideological reasons.

Mvemba Phezo Dizolele: And now the heavyweight, you mentioned Jean-Pierre Bemba, you said is also not happy. Jean-Pierre Bemba has come a long way. He used to be a vice president during the Kabila years, he had to... he used to control one third of the country during the years before the dialogue, inter Congolese dialogue, during the war. He also spent time at The Hague having been convicted there. But he came back and continued to rise. So where is the unhappiness?

Fred Bauma: Well, he did a very interesting to come back from the ICC to the government. I think his frustration may be from what he was expecting after the election. He was very active during the campaign. He did a, a lot of meetings for the President. He attacked very personally his, his former friend, Moise Katumbi, and he projected himself as someone who knows how to resolve, who may know how to resolve the conflict in the east. But it's also known here that there was tension between his ministry, the defense ministry, and the what we call the Maison Militaire of the President, so the military advisor, I guess, of the President, who is not to be... to have more power on the defense strategy than the Minister of Defense.

So what I understand is that he didn't want to have given but not only the Minister of Defense, but even if he could accept that it means he could accept change it to another senior position in the government. Now he's still a Vice Prime Minister, however he is the Vice Prime Minister of Transportation, which in in the Congolese government is not a... the most important position both in terms of prestige, but also in term of budget allocation. In the Ministry of Defense, I think they are spending in terms of defense in the last two years may amount to close 2 billion of dollars and it is very insignificant for US, but this is like the budgets increase three or fourfold and in the two years.

The Minister of Transportation has not a lot of resources is in charge of overseeing key companies that are, are not running very well. So he will still be in the government but not seen as the most senior person in that government.

Mvemba Phezo Dizolele: Although when you consider the needs for infrastructure development in DRC depending on what kind of support you get from the parliament and from President Tshisekedi, he has a point to make a major impact, but that time will tell us how that works out.

Fred Bauma: Yes. You'll think so, but the characteristic of this government is duplication of competencies, right? You have the Minister of Transportation and then you have the Minister of Infrastructure that are two different positions. And the Minister of Infrastructure has far more money than the Minister of Transportation, so I think he may have the opportunity to prove with policies, but the person who has possibility impact infrastructure is, is probably the Minister of Infrastructure rather than the Ministry of Transportation.

Mvemba Phezo Dizolele: The other thing when we still talk about the government, which has been a big departure and, I suppose, welcome departure is the appointment of the first female Prime Minister, Madame Judith Suminwa. In the history of the DRC, it's the first time the DRC has a lady Prime Minister. They're not many of them even across the continent. How is that being received and what was the background to that nomination?

Fred Bauma: That has been approved by many people in the political sphere as well as in, in the civil society. She is being presented, the Prime Minister, is being presented as someone competent. She was a Minister of Plan in the former government. The President is labeling himself the champion of positive masculinity for whatever that would mean. Now it's not only the the Prime Minister, I think we see also some women it's key position in this government. And I think most of them appear to be people who are known to be technocrat or competent people in their field. You have a Minister of Education, Minister of Foreign Affairs and few others who are, I think, a good sign of both inclusion of women in, in the government, but also of putting competent people to the right place.

Now that being said, the proportion of women in this government didn't change that much from the last government. It's increase a little bit, but maybe if we have a lot of progress, we have some other progress to make.

Mvemba Phezo Dizolele: What is the percentage of women representation in the government?

Fred Bauma: So far it's 30... 31% for the 17 women out of, out of 54 people.

Mvemba Phezo Dizolele: Speaking of that 54, 17 out of 54, why does the government... why does the DRC need such a big government?

Fred Bauma: I guess because you have to think of the government as a cake that everybody has to have a share. And there are a lot of people out there waiting for their share of cake. So as many people as you put in the government, and as many institutions you create around the government, the more you're able to manage all the clients around the President.

Mvemba Phezo Dizolele: So it's payback time?

Fred Bauma: Yes.

Mvemba Phezo Dizolele: The other concern that had been raised especially in the social media based battles among analysts and observers of Congo is that the majority in Parliament, the majority in government would like to change the Constitution. Is that something that you pick up in your research?

Fred Bauma: Well, we've heard that a lot. The president himself is saying that he should not be considered to be a taboo. Some key people in the government said it will change few Article but they can also change the Constitution, nothing has been decided yet. And this is a very controversial discussion, of course, because the current Constitution is a result of long years of struggle, violent struggle. So Congolese people hold the idea of respecting the Constitution. We fought for it in the last regime that was one of the reason why we went to the streets, especially on key Articles that define how you get to power and, and to prevent the President to seize all the power with the people.

Now, I think this government will probably try to change few article in the Constitution but that will lead to a lot of contestation.

Mvemba Phezo Dizolele: Okay. Do they intend also to change the term limits for the President, like we've seen in other countries?

Fred Bauma: They haven't said that explicitly. Some people, I think some reflection around putting your foot on seven years, but that would be a very risky thing to do. But what we're hearing is probably changing the way... like the way the President has been elected and put it in an indirect way. And I don't think all these options are... they have decided how they want to go. But if they substantially change the Constitution or if they propose a new Constitution even without changing the terms, that will allow the President to have other options.

Mvemba Phezo Dizolele: Okay. So they want, instead of having a direct suffrage, universal suffrage, they would like to have indirect like in countries like South Africa and others. One side that we've not covered but we have just a couple of minutes on this, it's very important but we're trying to get a better sense of this new configuration in the Parliament and the government. What is the state of affairs in the eastern provinces? We know that the government, you talked about the budget of the Ministry of Defense spent a lot in armament, they were training a lot of new recruits. We know there is presence, very strong presence of foreign mercenaries or operators, however they want to be called, under the outfit of Agamira in the east. What is your evaluation of the security situation in east and the relationship with Rwanda and also Uganda?

Fred Bauma: So on one side we have all those groups that you mentioned, I mean, the mercenaries, the Wazalendo, the, the local militias, and a lot of investments in equipment and in training. All that they haven't led so far to victory in the region. What we see is that the M23, which is supported by Rwanda is expanding its territory beyond places that it occupied in their previous campaign in 2012. This week there was some fighting around Kanyabayonga, which is on the north Rutshuru and the entry to, to Lubero and the, and the north of north Kivu. And the killings continue in many area by the ADF, even more killings in Ituri by some other group. So all the measures that the government has taken so far both in terms of spending but also in terms of proclaiming the state of siege for three years plus now has not been effective so far.

The other thing that we see is also the countries in the past that used to be what we used to consider to be allies like Kenya or Uganda, to some extent, are not really helping and the current government I think is less and less pursuing them to be ally in this situation. So it's look like we are being isolated in the region, it means, and maybe this would be a challenge of our new Minister of Regional Cooperation and Foreign Affairs to try to gain support of our key neighbors in the region around us. But the situation is worse than where it was last year and even years before. And we, we still have more than five million of people displaced, and as we speak other people are also moving in the northern of Rutshuru.

Mvemba Phezo Dizolele: Wow. That sounds very dire. Fred Bauma, on that not very cheerful note, I would like to thank you for joining us on Into Africa to talk about your country, the Democratic Republic of Congo and we wish you and your fellow citizens luck.

Fred Bauma: Thank you very much.

Mvemba Phezo Dizolele: Thank you for listening. We want to have more conversations about Africa. Tell your friends, subscribe to our podcast at Apple podcast. You can also read our analysis and report at csis.org/africa. So long.

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