DR Congo – Felix Tshisekedi: The negociated victory and the political embarrassment?
By Boniface MUSAVULI
In Congo-Kinshasa, opposition candidate Félix Tshisekedi was proclaimed “elected president” by the National Electoral Commission on January 10, 2019, following the presidential election hold on December 30, 2018. This victory comes one week after the Congolese episcopal conference (CENCO) communicate to the diplomatic representatives in Kinshasa the report on the conduct of the elections, from which the Belgian and American press had concluded that the winner of the presidential election was rather the opponent Martin Fayulu [1]. But what hapenned so that Tshisekedi be proclamed winner ?
Behind the scenes of an electoral hold-up
Backstage negotiations were undertaken by Kabila who realized that the candidate of power, Ramazani Shadary, was too low, in terms of expressed votes, to be imposed as elected President, a decision which could provoc a popular uprising, in addition to diplomatic pressure converging on the regime. The only alternative to Joseph Kabila was to cut the pear in half : sacrifice his dolphin Shadary and deprive the radical opponent, Fayulu, of the accession to the presidential chair. Félix Tshisekedi took up the ball and split in laudatory statements for Kabila, promissing, for example, not to prosecute the crimes committed by the former president; in other words, to guarantee total impunity to the former president, to whom, in addition, tributes will have to be hold in the future [2]. A done deal for Kabila!
Several sources close to Felix Tshisekedi and the entourage of Joseph Kabila, as well as diplomats in Kinshasa, in contact with the executives of UDPS (Tshisekedi’s party) and the UNC (Vital Kamerhe’s party), provided DESC with the details of the concrete content of these negotiations.
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni receives Felix Tshisekedi on October 8, 2018 in Kampala. Claude Ekolomba Ibalanky is at the left of Tshisekedi.
The process of linking the UDPS Party on the kabilie: three years of negotiations
If contacts between the UDPS and the Kabila regime date back to 2015, it is early 2018 that they reached the cruising speed with the surprise arrival of Claude Ekolomba Ibalanky in the entourage of the president of the UDPS. The former representative of the PPRD in southern Africa was mysteriousely catapulted in April 2018 as Special Advisor to Felix Tshisekedi, newly elected party chairman on March 31, 2018. Since then, he’s branding him in the panties. He was seen at his side in November 2018 during the meeting with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, as well as during the Geneva and Nairobi negotiations. Several in-depth research conducted by Jean-Jacques Wondo, Director of DESC, and several African and international investigators on the mafia activities of the Kabila clan in South Africa converge on Claude Ekolomba Ibalanky. The latter, according to accounting documents compiled by Jean-Jacques Wondo, is that Mr Ekolomba Ibalanky heads no less than 30 companies screen [3] and offshore companies. Almost all of them have wackry names, are established in South Africa and belong to the direct clan of the biological family of Joseph Kabila. Examples include: Bantu Networks, Bantu Exploration, Bantour, Coralinx, Congas Commodities International, Invest in Congo. Bantuvest Development Projects, Mega Circle Congo, Dimona Capital, Dimona Group, etc. Mr Ekolomba Ibalanky is very close to the South African billionaire Patrick Motsepe whose Cyril Ramaphosa, the South African president, is the brother-in-law, specifies Jean-Jacques Wondo.
Besides Claude Ekolomba Ibalanky, François Mwamba Tshishimbi, former Secretary General of MLC (JP Bemba’s party) debauched by Kabila and then reconverted mysteriously to the UDPS, and Fortuna Biselele, known by the acronym BiFor, were the artisans of the rapprochement between Kabila and Tshisekedi. BiFor, whose activities have been clouded by DESC for a number of years, has an influential lobbying network in Rwanda, Uganda and South Africa in circles close to the Gupta brothers and the former President Jacob Zuma. As for Vital Kamerhe, it is since his negotiations with the power in September 2016 that he has moved closer to his former political camp, with which he has difficulties to breakg the umbilical cord. His collusion with Jaynet Kabila, the half-sister of the outgoing president, is no more a Polichinelle secret in the political and diplomatic high circles of Kinshasa.
Signature of the CaCh electoral alliance between Kamerhe and Tshisekedi in Nairobi. Mr Claude Ibalanky appears behind Felix Tshisekedi.
Negotiated victory, disputed results
Several testimonies claim that the results were then tampered in the National Electoral Commission chaired by Corneille Nangaa, a loyal supporter of President Joseph Kabila. Internet was cut by decision of the Government, and the Congolese found themselves in an digital darkness, not knowing what sauce they were being eaten. A week after the polls, the ceremony of proclamation of the results was organized. But hours before the announcement of the results, the representatives of the opponent Martin Fayulu to the Electoral Commission have slammed the door so as not to have to endorse this electoral imposture [4]. Felix Tshisekedi was thus proclaimed elected President.
On the political front, at first sight, Joseph Kabila can be pleased to have divided the opposition, and the Congolese to a certain extent, by putting them in front of a Kafkaesque situation. If the supporters of Martin Fayulu resolutely dispute the results, it is a post-election crisis whose main beneficiary should be Joseph Kabila, who would remain in power, especially in the scenario where the Constitutional Court would decide to cancel the elections for a set of reasons quite justified. If they endorse the results, they enter in an unknown framework, because not many people are aware of detailed aspects of the secret agreements between Joseph Kabila and Felix Tshisekedi.
Beyond the support of Martin Fayulu, the Catholic Church represented by CENCO (National Episcopal Conference of Congo). It had deployed 40 thousand election observers across the country and collected the data considered to be the most reliable. In his press conference on January 2019, the Standing Committee of CENCO declared that “the results of the presidential election as published by the CENI (Electoral national commission) do not correspond to the data collected by (his) observation mission from the polling and counting centers “. CENCO had promised to confront them with those of the CENI in case of necessity. It is also, in particular, on the basis of his preliminary report that foreign diplomats, the Belgian press and the American press announced the name of Martin Fayulu. It is still on the basis of the same data that the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jean-Yves Le Drian, said Thursday, January 10, that the results of the presidential election in the Democratic Republic of Congo were “not in conformity” expectations and that the opponent Martin Fayulu was “a priori” the winner. His Belgian counterpart, Didier Reynders, for his part, expressed serious doubts about the credibility of these results. The European Commission said “take note of the results and the fact that they are disputed”. The United States goes further and demand the CENI « clarification of issues » on the counting of the presidential election. The Canadian government expects that “the choice expressed by the Congolese people on this occasion is respected.” The European Union recommends to the CENI to publish the minutes of each local center of compilation of the results of the elections of December 30th. This is important for the credibility of the process and the sincerity of the vote, according to the electoral law, according to an EU statement released on Friday, 11 January. It is to be noted that all these diplomatic declarations, openly contesting the partial results published by the CENI, reinforce not only the position of the CENCO, but also the statement of Martin Fayulu who refuses categorically to recognize his alleged defeat and speaks of a electoral hold-up.
The calm before the storm ?
If we can observe a general lull around the country, despite a dozen deaths in Maï-Ndombe and Kinshasa, the next few days may plunge the country to the unknown, if the situation remains in the state and especially if such tampering extends to the results of the provincial and legislative elections. US and French forces deployed on the coast of Gabon have advanced to the coast of the Republic of Congo. Belgium has also sent a contingent of its new Motorized Integrated Brigade as a preventive measure. An African security source tells DESC about the possibility of intervention by the Angolan army in the DRC in case of persistence of the post-electoral crisis.
What will Martin Fayulu, his two main allies, Jean-Pierre Bemba and Moïse Katumbi, the African regional organizations and the international community do? What will the Catholic Church and Congolese civil society do? What will the CENI and the outgoing Congolese authorities do? But mostly what policy stance will Félix-Antoine Tshilombo Tshisekedi, the president proclaimed by the CENI, in the management of this crisis? … Always keep in mind the fact that the voters of Beni, Butembo and Yumbi did not vote on December 30, 2018.
It is expected that they will vote in March 2019. Problem: if Tshisekedi is officially credited with 7,051,013 votes and Martin Fayulu with 6,366,732 votes, the difference between the two candidates is only 684,281 votes, ie half of the voters of the three entities excluded from the vote of December 30, 2018 for disputed reasons. These regions, which have 1,256,177 voters, overwhelmingly favor Martin Fayulu, who won more than 90% of the vote according to the results of a parallel election organized by the population as a sign of defiance of power. If these voters are indeed called to vote in March 2019, and if they express themselves in much the same way, the presidential chair should escape Felix Tshisekedi, which would expose the country to a political crisis with unforeseeable consequences.
Boniface MUSAVULI, DESC Coordinator / DESC Exclusivity
Author of the books :
– CONGO’S BENI MASSACRES: Fake Islamists, Rwandan Unending Occupation,
– Les Massacres de Beni – Kabila, le Rwanda et les faux islamistes,
– Les Génocides des Congolais – De Léopold II à Paul Kagame.
With the precious contributions of Jean-Jacques Wondo
References :
[1] https://www.levif.be/actualite/international/rdc-martin-fayulu-serait-le-vainqueur-de-l-election-presidentielle-selon-l-eglise-catholique-congolaise/article-normal-1074997. html? cookie_check = 1547095773 .
[2] http://blog.lesoir.be/colette-braeckman/2019/01/06/the-maintenance-of-felix-tshisekedi/ .
[3] A shell company is, for simplicity, a company with a fictitious activity, created to conceal the activities and financial flows of companies that have a real activity. This, for purposes of tax optimization, or sometimes money laundering.
[4] https://www.lesoir.be/199707/article/2019-01-09/rd-congo-un-participant-martin-fayulu-quitte-the-commission-electorale?fbclid=IwAR1Ki3ZTzqF_L4-4h4akUGlswzTTFJdoywFvwHMe2CxoZTWbDAMmWCJIvic .
