Behind a steaming coffee in his office in Kasongo, a city in the middle of the jungle in the east of the country, the epicenter of the European and Arab trade in African slaves, philosophy professor Kitanga Kizito stressed a few months ago the vital importance of the Republic Democratic Republic of the Congo, the second largest country on the continent after Algeria. Kizito was not referring to Africa; he talked about the world. “What happens in Congo – he said – does not only concern its citizens. This is the heart of the continent and the riches of this country are innumerable, everyone is connected to what happens here, whether it is the exploitation of coltan or cobalt that reaches Chinese mobile phones, the illegal logging of wood that transforms into European furniture or the diamonds and gold that go to Russia or the United States. If Congo catches fire, all of Africa burns and the world gets blisters.”
Almost 40 million Congolese, out of a total of 100 million inhabitants, are called today to the polls to decide whether their current president, Félix Tshisekedi, deserves a second five-year term or, as happened in the last elections, there is a change of powers at the head of the country. About twenty candidates will try to avoid it. Among them, Martin Fayulu stands out, who for many observers was the real winner in the last elections, but lost access to the presidential seat due to an under-the-table agreement between former president Kabila and Tshisekedi to maintain control of the strings of power between them.
For Paul Nantulya, an analyst at the Center for African Strategic Studies, while Tshisekedi has achieved some independence from his predecessor’s stranglehold on state institutions, his legacy is flawed. “The classified security budget has almost multiplied tenfold, which is worrying because it is a notoriously corrupt sector. Tshisekedi and his family have been accused of benefiting from opaque deals with Chinese companies to access copper, cobalt and diamonds.”
They also aspire to give a new direction to the country Moïse Katumbi, billionaire and former governor of the fractious mining region of Katanga, and a newcomer who brings together hopes, especially international, that Congo emerges from the spiral of poverty, misgovernance and corruption in the one that has been installed for decades: Denis Mukwege. A doctor and Nobel Peace Prize winner in 2018, Mukwege enjoys enormous social and global prestige for his crusade to treat women and girls raped in the conflict zones in Congo free of charge and for pointing out those responsible, be they rebels or members of the army. . Without a political party rooted in the territory or political experience, it remains to be seen if his incontestable hero aura will help him convince the Congolese. After suffering assassination and kidnapping attempts – he lives in confinement in his Panzi hospital guarded by blue helmets – Mukwege offers a speech without fear. “The pillar of my work will be to give back to the Congolese people their dignity and value,” he said at his first rally.
As has happened on other occasions, fear of a violent outbreak is in the air, especially for Western analysts. The human rights organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported on Saturday that since October there have been clashes between followers of rival political parties that have caused one death, five rapes or sexual assaults on women, and harassment and arrest of journalists. For Thomas Fessy, Congo researcher for HRW, the authorities “must urgently react to prevent violence before, during and after the scrutiny in order to prevent an already dangerous situation from degenerating even further.”
The disorganization in a country the size of Europe and with hardly any infrastructure (there is not a single road that connects the east of the country with the capital, Kinshasa), also plays a role in mistrust. Local activist groups report that 1.5 million people will not be able to vote due to the conflict and that another seven million internally displaced people will not be able to participate either.
