In an interview broadcast on the night of Tuesday 6 to Wednesday 7 August, Congolese President Félix Tshisekedi accused his predecessor, Joseph Kabila, of preparing a “insurrection” and belonging to an armed rebel movement.
Mr. Kabila “prepare an insurrection”said Mr. Tshisekedi, who also accused his predecessor of coordinating or belonging to the Congo River Alliance (AFC), a political-military movement that includes the March 23 Movement (M23) rebellion. “The AFC, that’s him”assured Mr. Tshisekedi, without further details, during this interview granted to the Congolese radio Top Congo from Belgium, where he is staying for medical treatment, and published by the presidency of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on its X account.
In December, Corneille Nangaa, former president of the DRC electoral commission, announced the creation of the Congo River Alliance (AFC) with the M23, a rebellion supported by Rwanda that has seized large swathes of territory in the North Kivu province in eastern DRC since late 2021. Several members of Joseph Kabila’s People’s Party for Reconstruction and Democracy (PPRD) have joined the AFC and are awaiting the verdict of a military court in Kinshasa, where they face the death penalty.
Joseph Kabila came to power in 2001 after the assassination of his father, Laurent-Désiré Kabila, who had overthrown former dictator Mobutu Sese Seko in 1997. In January 2019, Mr Kabila handed over power to Mr Tshisekedi, a former opponent who was declared the winner of the controversial presidential election in December 2018, marking the first peaceful transfer of power since the country’s independence in 1960.
After two years of conflictual co-management of the country, Mr. Tshisekedi had declared a break with Mr. Kabila’s political clan, whose majority in Parliament he had overthrown. Since then, the former president has remained very discreet in his appearances, without ever taking a position on the progress of the country.
In mid-March, opposition figure Jaynet Kabila, her twin sister, was questioned for several hours by the DRC military intelligence service. A few days earlier, the headquarters of the Mzee Laurent-Désiré Kabila Foundation, of which Jaynet Kabila is the president, had been searched by military intelligence.
In December 2023, the general elections were boycotted by the Kabila camp. Félix Tshisekedi was re-elected with more than 73% of the vote in the single-round presidential election, tainted according to the opposition by a “multitude of irregularities”.