Congo’s president mulls successors

Bloomberg

Democratic Republic of Congo President Joseph Kabila is meeting members of his ruling coalition to discuss who will be the candidate in presidential elections this year, party and government officials said.
The central African nation is scheduled to hold parliamentary and presidential votes on December 23 that have been delayed since 2016 by the electoral commission’s inability to organise them. While the constitution bars Kabila from seeking a third term, he’s yet to say whether he’ll be a candidate. Attempting to extend his 17-year rule risks destabilising Africa’s biggest copper and cobalt producer, which hasn’t had a peaceful transfer of power since independence in 1960.
Representatives of about a dozen groups that make up the Common Front for Congo, known as the FCC, were invited individually to Kabila’s farm outside the capital, Kinshasa, for consultations that are ongoing, the officials said. Two said he asked each group to come back to him with a list of four preferred potential presidential candidates. “We are in deliberation to think about the profile of the candidate,” said Ferdinand Kambere, the deputy permanent secretary of Kabila’s party, the People’s Party for Reconstruction and Democracy. The PPRD was expected to deliver its four names, Kambere said, without saying who it will nominate.

‘Unequivocal’ commitment
Kabila said on July 19 his commitment to the constitution is “ unequivocal,” but his persistent refusal to rule himself out of the next election is fueling fears among his opponents and the international community that he plans to change or reinterpret the rules. Several senior allies have said the president has the right to run in December, arguing a modification adopted in 2011 introduced a completely new constitution.
Tryphon Kin-Kiey, a former minister of parliamentary affairs and senior FCC member, said his representatives met Kabila on July 28.
“Lots of groups will name him among the four names,” Kin-Kiey said. “Some groups give four names; others give only one name, the name of Kabila.”