The politics of the Democratic Republic of the Congo take place in the context of a decentralised unitary semi-presidential republic of 25 provinces and the city-province of Kinshasa. The president is the head of state, elected by universal suffrage for a term of five years, while the prime minister is the head of government appointed by the president with the support of the parliament. The prime minister and the cabinet are responsible to the legislative branch, a bicameral legislature consisting of the National Assembly, with members that are directly elected, and the Senate, with members that are indirectly elected by provincial legislatures. The constitution describes an independent judiciary, which includes the Constitutional Court, the Court of Cassation, and the Council of State. The current political structure of the DRC is known as the Third Republic, which was proclaimed on 29 May 1997, though the current constitution was not promulgated until 18 February 2006.
Since 1996, the Democratic Republic of Congo has been a battleground, starting with neighboring states invading Zaire, which ended the 32-year rule of Mobutu Sese Seko and saw Laurent-Désiré Kabila becoming the new president. These conflicts originated from the 1994 Rwandan genocide and subsequent destabilization of the DRC's eastern region. Nine African countries became involved directly, with many more offering military, financial, and political support. Internal rebellions further complicated matters. This led to a severe humanitarian crisis.Elections in the DRC. (n.d.-a). [https://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/sr200.pdf United States Institute of Peace] In 2001, Laurent-Désiré was killed, and his son Joseph Kabila took over as the leader of the country. Under the new president's leadership, efforts were made to bring an end to the presence of foreign troops in the eastern DRC, instead a cooperative approach was adopted, focusing on diplomatic discussions to resolve conflicts. This led to peace accords in 2002 that intended to reunify the country and establish a transitional government to draft a constitution and organize elections within three years.
The transitional cabinet took office in June 2003, and the two houses of parliament were set up in July 2003, with the seats distributed among political parties and warring factions. An election commission was established in November 2004. Work on a draft constitution began in February 2005, and it was approved by parliament in May 2005, before passing a national referendum in December 2005 with 82% of the vote. The DRC's first free general election in over four decades was held in July 2006, with a presidential run-off in October 2006, won by Joseph Kabila. Kabila is credited with ending the war, restoring stability to most of the country, and establishing a unified government and army. However, his 18-year administration also came to be known for corruption, electoral fraud, and limited reform, and curtailed democracy and civil liberties. Kabila faced allegations of fraud in his re-election in 2011, and when his constitutional mandate expired in 2016 he extended his term for another two years.
In 2019, Félix Tshisekedi succeeded Kabila after the contentious 2018 election, in the DRC's first peaceful transition of power since independence. Since then, democratic institutions have continued to decline as the political system is dominated by the president and his family, whose re-election in 2023 was marred by allegations of fraud. National general elections in 2006, 2011, 2018, and 2023 have seen high voter turnouts. As of 2024, there were over 1,000 political parties registered in the DRC. The most prominent include Félix Tshisekedi's Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS), Joseph Kabila's People's Party for Reconstruction and Democracy (PPRD), Moïse Katumbi's Together for the Republic (EPR), Jean-Pierre Bemba's Movement for the Liberation of the Congo (MLC), and Vital Kamerhe's Union for the Congolese Nation (UNC).
Political history
From the day of the arguably ill-prepared independence of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the tensions between the powerful leaders of the political elite, such as Joseph Kasa Vubu, Patrice Lumumba, Moise Tshombe, Joseph Mobutu and others, jeopardize the political stability of the new state. From Tshombe's secession of the Katanga, to the assassination of Lumumba, to the two coups d'état of Mobutu, the country has known periods of nationwide peace, but virtually no period of genuine democratic rule.
The Mobutu era The regime of President Mobutu Sese Seko lasted 32 years (1965–1997), during which all but the first seven years the country was named Zaire. His dictatorship operated as a one-party state, which saw most of the powers concentrated between President Mobutu, who was simultaneously the head of both the party and the state through the Popular Movement of the Revolution (MPR), and a series of essentially rubber-stamping institutions.
One particularity of the Regime was the claim to be thriving for an authentic system, different from Western or Soviet influences. This lasted roughly between the establishment of Zaire in 1971, and the official beginning of the transition towards democracy, on 24 April 1990. This was true at the regular people's level as everywhere else. People were ordered by law to drop their Western Christian names; the titles Mr. and Mrs. were abandoned for the male and female versions of the French word for "citizen"; Men were forbidden to wear suits, and women to wear pants. At the institutional level, many of the institutions also changed denominations, but the result was a system that borrowed from both systems:
The MPR's Central Committee: Under the system of the "party-state", this committee had a higher position in the institutional make-up than the government or cabinet. It had both executive oversight authority, and in practice, binding legislative authority, as it dictated the party platform. Mobutu headed the Central Committee as Founding-President. The vice-president of the Central Committee was essentially the country's vice president, without the succession rights. The Executive Council: Known elsewhere as the Government or the Cabinet, this council was the executive authority in the country, made of State Commissioners (known elsewhere as ministers). For a long period of time, Mobutu was the sole leader of the Executive Council. He eventually would appoint First State Commissioners (known elsewhere as prime ministers) with largely coordinating powers and very little executive power. The last "First State Commissioner" was Kengo Wa Dondo. The Legislative Council: essentially the rubber-stamp parliament, it was made up of People Commissioners (known elsewhere as MPs), who were sometimes elected, as individual members of the MPR, and always on the party platform. The Supreme Court: As the judiciary, this court was seemingly the only independent branch of government, but in effect it was subordinate to a Judicial Council over which the regime had a very strong influence.
Every corporation, whether financial or union, as well as every division of the administration, was set up as branches of the party. CEOs, union leaders, and division directors were each sworn in as section presidents of the party. Every aspect of life was regulated to some degree by the party, and the will of its founding-president, Mobutu Sese Seko.
Most of the petty aspects of the regime disappeared after 1990 with the beginning of the democratic transition. Democratization would prove to be fairly short-lived, as Mobutu's power plays dragged it in length until ultimately 1997, when forces led by Laurent Kabila eventually successfully toppled the regime, after a 9-month-long military campaign.
The Kabilas' governments and war The government of former president Mobutu Sese Seko was toppled by a rebellion led by Laurent Kabila in May 1997, with the support of Rwanda and Uganda. They were later to turn against Kabila and backed a rebellion against him in August 1998. Troops from Zimbabwe, Angola, Namibia, Chad, and Sudan intervened to support the Kinshasa regime. A cease-fire was signed on 10 July 1999 by the DROC, Zimbabwe, Angola, Uganda, Namibia, Rwanda, and Congolese armed rebel groups, but fighting continued.
Under Laurent Kabila's regime, all executive, legislative, and military powers were first vested in the President, Laurent-Désiré Kabila. The judiciary was independent, with the president having the power to dismiss or appoint. The president was first head of a 26-member cabinet dominated by the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo (ADFL). Towards the end of the 90s, Laurent Kabila created and appointed a Transitional Parliament, with a seat in the buildings of the former Katanga Parliament, in the southern town of Lubumbashi, in a move to unite the country, and to legitimate his regime. Kabila was assassinated on 16 January 2001 and his son Joseph Kabila was named head of state ten days later.
Initially underestimated as a mere figurehead chosen by his father's advisors, Kabila surprised many by quickly asserting his authority and turning the government in new directions. Shortly after taking office, he went on his first international trip, where he engaged in diplomatic talks with leaders from France, Belgium, and the United States, including the Secretary of State Colin Powell, as well as officials from global institutions like the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the United Nations. During his visit to the United States, he met with Paul Kagame, the Rwandan president, despite their past differences. In a significant move in February 2001, Kabila committed to implementing a ceasefire agreement signed in July 1999, which had previously been disregarded by all involved. He initiated discussions with rebel groups and negotiated the withdrawal of troops from Rwanda, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Angola, and Namibia, which had a military presence in Congo. UN peacekeepers were deployed in March to oversee the ceasefire and troop withdrawals.Encyclopædia Britannica, inc. (30 April 2024). Joseph Kabila. Encyclopædia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Joseph-Kabila
The younger Kabila continued with his father's Transitional Parliament, but overhauled his entire cabinet, replacing it with a group of technocrats, with the stated aim of putting the country back on the track of development, and coming to a decisive end of the Second Congo War. In October 2002, the new president was successful in getting occupying Rwandan forces to withdraw from eastern Congo; two months later, an agreement was signed by all remaining warring parties to end the fighting and set up a Transition Government, the make-up of which would allow representation for all negotiating parties. Two founding documents emerged from this: The Transition Constitution, and the Global and Inclusive Agreement, both of which describe and determine the make-up and organization of the Congolese institutions, until planned elections in July 2006, at which time the provisions of the new constitution, democratically approved by referendum in December 2005, will take full effect and that is how it happened.
Under the Global and All-Inclusive Agreement, signed on 17 December 2002, in Pretoria, there was to be one President and four Vice-Presidents, one from the government, one from the Rally for Congolese Democracy, one from the MLC, and one from civil society. The position of vice-president expired after the 2006 elections.