Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
06KINSHASA1856
2006-12-14 11:35:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Kinshasa
Cable title:  

UNRESOLVED POLITICAL QUESTIONS, BEHIND-THE-SCENES

Tags:  PGOV KDEM KPKO CG ELECTIONS 
pdf how-to read a cable
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P 141135Z DEC 06
FM AMEMBASSY KINSHASA
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INFO RUEHXR/RWANDA COLLECTIVE
RUCNSAD/SOUTHERN AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT COMMUNITY
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC
RHEFDIA/DIA WASHDC
RHMFISS/HQ USEUCOM VAIHINGEN GE
RUFOADA/JAC MOLESWORTH RAF MOLESWORTH UK
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

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