DRC President Kabila remains as negotiations continue

AP photo

By

Sylvain Muyali

Congolese President Joseph Kabila is this week due to meet with groups of the political and social class. According to a message published on the Presidency’s twitter account, these meetings are organized to “set the stage for the implementation of the 31 December 2016 agreement”.

The same message states that these meetings will take place following the “final report of the political negotiations of the inter-diocesan center made by the bishops of the CENCO to the Head of State” on 28 March and before the address of Joseph Kabila before the Parliament in congress.

After having received the Catholic bishops who ended their mission of good offices in the political discussions for the implementation of the December 31 agreement, President Kabila had indicated that he would address the nation in an official Address to Parliament.

The discussions conducted under the aegis of the CENCO did not allow the power and the opposition to agree on the implementation of the agreement of 31 December signed by both sides to co-manage the transition from which the elections must be organized.

Two issues continue to divide the two camps: the appointment of the transitional Prime Minister and the chair of the council for monitoring the agreement. Two posts which, according to the agreement reached in December 2016, must go to the Rassemblement, a coalition that gathers the main opposition movements.

The elections are supposed to be held before the end of this year to elect in particular the new President of the Republic who will succeed Joseph Kabila whose second and last constitutional mandate expired in December 2016.

Sylvain Muyali

Sylvain Muyali is a Congolese Humanitarian Fixer Journalist, Photographer and Filmmaker, as well as acting as Fixer and Facilitator for analysts and researchers, building capacities for NGO monitoring in the in Central Africa (DR Congo, Rwanda,Uganda, Burundi, Central African Republic, South Sudan and Congo Brazzaville), mostly in Democratic Republic of the Congo. He has reported previously for the Associated Press and Tuck Magazine.