Democratic Republic of Congo President Felix Tshisekedi is increasingly being viewed as his own man. He has succeeded in shaking off his predecessor and perceived puppeteer Joseph Kabila and even gone ahead to be elected chair of the African Union.
The world in general, and Africa in particular, has garnered confidence in the “new” DRC under President Tshisekedi, after decades of being seen as a failed state. The president looks committed to reforms, cracking down on corruption and bringing relative peace to the troubled east, where dozens of militia groups operate.
After he was elected in the controversial polls of 2019, President Tshisekedi had to fight off allegations of vote theft and claims that it was indeed Joseph Kabila who had the levers of power. But the Congolese leader seems to have rejigged the country’s politics, taking control of the two chambers of Parliament, which recently voted to oust Kabila’s prime minister Sylvestre Ilunga. His choice of Prime Minister, Jean-Michel Sama Lukonde, is viewed as a reformer.
This new “status” for the Congolese leader has seen many of his African peers falling over each other for his attention, with Kenya’s Uhuru Kenyatta, the chair of the East African Community – which has been working to have DRC join the bloc as soon as possible – making a three-day tour of the country and returning home with a bag of goodies. It was also the week that Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo, Somalia’s besieged leader, visited Kinshasa for a day.
In January, Rwanda’s Paul Kagame sent a delegation to Kinshasa with a “special message” and to hold bilateral talks on several areas, “including political, economic and security.”
While both leaders – separately – spoke of collaborating on regional issues, it was Nairobi that seemed to push through its dual envelope of security and trade.
They witnessed the renewal of an…