Congo’s succession fight is already under way

By the time Felix Tshisekedi is due to leave office in 2028, the Democratic Republic of the Congo may already have exhausted its patience with procedure. The country is now locked in a dispute over constitutional reform, and the real question is not whether lawyers can produce another text, but whether anyone still believes the text will be respected.

The spark came in May, when Tshisekedi said he had not sought a third term, but would accept one if the Congolese people wanted him to continue. That was enough to revive opposition fears that reform could become a back door to extending his stay. Under the current constitution, the president is elected for five years, renewable once, and the rules on the number and length of presidential terms are protected from constitutional revision.

The machinery of state has not exactly calmed anyone. In June, Parliament passed legislation setting out conditions for a referendum. In July, the Constitutional Court said the law complied with the constitution, while also raising concerns about some of its provisions. On August 10, Tshisekedi asked the presidents of the National Assembly and Senate to reconsider the text in the light of the court’s observations, and the National Assembly said the matter would return to the agenda in its September session.

Tshisekedi’s camp says the issue is institutional reform, not an explicit bid to extend his mandate. Critics hear a more familiar script. The law provides for a constituent assembly followed by a referendum if there is what it calls a major dysfunction of state institutions, and opponents fear that this mechanism could eventually be used to alter the provisions that bar a third term. In Congo, as elsewhere, legal architecture has a habit of becoming political camouflage.

The main opposition force against the process is C64, or the Article 64 coalition, named after the constitutional clause that calls on citizens to resist anyone who takes power in violation of the constitutional order. The coalition says it will oppose any attempt to use reform to keep Tshisekedi beyond 2028, and it has called for nationwide mobilisation on September 15. In Kinshasa, demonstrations are expected to converge on the Palais du Peuple, the seat of parliament, which is a pointed choice rather than a decorative one.

The dispute has already spilled beyond the capital. Thousands protested in Goma and Bukavu on July 28 against proposed constitutional changes and any effort to extend Tshisekedi’s time in office. In those cities, the debate is not abstract. Gentil Mulume, a civil society activist in Goma, said any constitutional change extending Tshisekedi’s mandate would not be recognised in territory controlled by M23 and the AFC. That is not a minor caveat; it is the sort of detail that turns a national argument into a territorial one.

The broader backdrop is a war in the east that has changed the political temperature everywhere else. M23, operating within the broader Alliance Fleuve Congo, controls Goma and Bukavu, the capitals of North Kivu and South Kivu. The Congolese government accuses Rwanda of supporting M23, a charge Kigali denies. Tshisekedi has warned that elections may not be possible if the fighting continues, arguing that it would be difficult to organise a credible vote while parts of the country remain outside government control.

That war is also feeding the constitutional dispute. Emmanuel Bugama, a political analyst based in Bunia, said national interests should take precedence over political quarrels. Kevin Kalala, a 30-year-old mobile-credit retailer in Kinshasa, offered a more basic complaint: he said he does not know enough about the constitution to take a position and that the state should first teach citizens what it contains, what should change and why. A republic, it appears, still has to explain itself.

Tshisekedi has proposed an inclusive national dialogue involving political parties, civil society and religious groups. While in Libreville on August 16, he said he would soon address the nation to set out his vision and the contours of the talks, though the date and format have not yet been announced. He has ruled out sitting with people he accuses of siding with Rwanda or the armed rebellion, while Martin Fayulu has called for Joseph Kabila and Corneille Nangaa to take part.

For now, the question is no longer only whether the constitution will change. It is whether Congo’s political forces can agree on the rules before the 2028 succession becomes another institutional crisis, with the east still in the hands of armed actors and Kinshasa absorbed in a contest over its own limits.

Written by Andreas Hofer andreas.hofer@alpineweekly.com