UNRESOLVED POLITICAL QUESTIONS, BEHIND-THE-SCENES

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 KINSHASA 001856 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/13/2016 TAGS: PGOV KDEM KPKO CG ELECTIONS SUBJECT: UNRESOLVED POLITICAL QUESTIONS, BEHIND-THE-SCENES NEGOTIATIONS MARK POST-INAUGURATION DRC'S FIRST WEEK Classified By: PolCouns DBrown, reasons 1.4 b/d ¶1. (C) Summary. Longtime Congolese political figure Antoine Gizenga is expected to be named as prime minister in the new government of President Joseph Kabila. Kabila has been presented with recommendations for ministerial appointments, but has announced no nominations. Formal installation of the government may be delayed until mid-January, pending a Supreme Court decision on the constitutionality of the National Assembly's internal rules. End summary. ¶2. (SBU) The first week of Joseph Kabila's presidency following his December 6 inauguration featured unresolved questions and behind-the-scenes negotiations on forming a government. All expectations are that Antoine Gizenga will be named prime minister, but the identities of other members of the government and the role of the political opposition remain the subject of intense debate and speculation. The process is further complicated by technical procedures involving the Constitution, Supreme Court and the National Assembly. Prime minister -------------- ¶3. (U) Antoine Gizenga, 81, is expected to be named DRC prime minister under the terms of the coalition agreement signed in September by Gizenga and Kabila. Gizenga's name was reportedly put forward in a December 9 letter to Kabila following a meeting of Gizenga's Unified Lumumbaist Party (PALU) the previous day. The coalition agreement gave PALU the right to name the prime minister in the event of a Kabila victory, and unless Gizenga decides to designate someone else from PALU the position is his for the asking. ¶4. (U) Gizenga, PALU's secretary-general and political patriarch, is a former colleague of Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, and spent many years in exile during the Mobutu regime. He endorsed Kabila after finishing third in the July 30 presidential vote. PALU support helped more than double Kabila's totals in Kinshasa in the October 29 run-off with Jean-Pierre Bemba, and increased Kabila's share of the vote total in Bandundu province from three to 40 percent. Ministerial appointments -------------- ¶5. (U) Political and procedural issues look likely to delay installation of the new government until at least mid-January. Kabila's chief of staff Leonard She Okitundu attempted to clarify the status of current ministers in a December 12 press release which stated that they, as well as provincial governors and vice governors, are limited to making decisions on business currently before them. ¶6. (C) Negotiations are ongoing on doling out the limited number of senior positions available at the Presidency and in the cabinet. (Note: A current cabinet member from the Kabila-allied People's Party for Reconstruction and Development (PPRD) reported December 7 that among the most sought-after and contentious appointments are the senior-most positions in the Presidency itself. End note.). A key Presidency official told us that advisers submitted on December 8 a list of cabinet options to Kabila for decision. ¶7. (SBU) Barring unforeseen circumstances, the National Assembly, controlled by Kabila allies, will approve the government and its program. Technical legal procedures will ensure that this is a deliberate process. -- DRC electoral law requires that the prime minister be nominated from the Assembly's majority party or coalition. No single party won a majority in the July 30 elections. Although Kabila's Alliance for the Presidential Majority (AMP) coalition controls the Assembly, the law requires him to appoint a temporary official ("Informateur") to identify a majority grouping. -- The Supreme Court must determine that the Assembly's internal rules are constitutional. The Assembly, in its first official act, passed the legislation November 23, but did not submit it to the Court until December 8. The text details rules of procedure and designates members of the Assembly's permanent bureau, a leadership committee which will control most of its administrative functions, including KINSHASA 00001856 002 OF 002 budget. Opposition parliamentarian Thomas Luhaka told us December 13 he expected the court to deliver its decision December 21. -- If the Court approves the text, the Assembly will be called back into session to select its leaders. It can then consider the program of government to be presented by the prime minister. If it approves the program in a vote of confidence, the government can be officially installed. -- If the Court strikes out any provisions of the internal rules legislation, members will be called back to revise the legislation for re-submission to the Court, and the clock re-sets. Luhaka said his party filed an appeal with the Court December 13, claiming that key parts of the text were unconstitutional. Political opposition -------------- ¶8. (C) Legislation concerning the division of committee assignments and chairmanships will be among the Assembly's initial order of business after it considers ministerial nominations. The PPRD cabinet member said the party had informally floated a draft text during the fall that would provide the opposition a secondary leadership role in the Assembly and membership on all committees. Some of this appears to have been incorporated in the internal rules legislation. ¶9. (SBU) Supporters of Jean-Pierre Bemba, runner-up to Kabila for the presidency, candidate for senator from Kinshasa and presumptive opposition leader, have consistently advocated greater "power-sharing" than Kabila allies are prepared to concede. They can be expected to reprise arguments made in the internal rules debate when the Assembly considers legislation on the opposition. ¶10. (C) Their fundamental complaint portrays the AMP as working to subvert the Assembly's constitutional oversight role, and thereby cripple creation of a viable political opposition. (Comment: Such an interpretation is predicated on the assumption that a legislature's "oversight authority" is compromised if committee chairmanships are not allocated to the opposition. End comment.) ¶11. (C) Several members from Bemba's Union for the Nation (UfN) alliance walked out of the internal rules debate, alleging lack of transparency and bias by the presiding officer, who they claimed had refused to recognize them during the debate. In fact, as a PALU parliamentarian reported several days later, the presiding officer had failed to recognize several other members as well, not by design, but because of age-related infirmities. ¶12. (C) Opposition parliamentarians Luhaka and Dely Sesanga claim the legislation is unconstitutional, but both have personal motives and ambition, and neither has offered credible legal arguments to justify their claim. Luhaka, under suspicion for improper financial management during his brief tenure as National Assembly President, had aimed for appointment as the Assembly's First Vice President. Sesanga, encouraged by the British Embassy in particular, had argued for opposition chairmanship of the Assembly economic and financial committee, and had been frank about his ambition for the job. Comment -------------- ¶13. (SBU) Procedural roadblocks aside, there is no legal bar to Kabila announcing his choices for ministers at any time. Doing so soon would make for a smoother start to the new year. That decisions have not been finalized regarding Presidency and Cabinet appointments is an indication of the strong pressures Kabila is under from the numerous factions within his court and coalition. It will be important in any event to move as quickly as possible to have new officials and institutions in place to begin to eliminate the current void in government authority and operations. MEECE