Félix Tshisekedi: The man who vowed to make DRC ‘the Germany of Africa’

At the beginning of his first term in office in 2019, Congolese president Félix Tshisekedi vowed to make his country ‘the Germany of Africa’.

He promised to grow the economy and create jobs for the people in a country with massive resources, but of which the population was living in poverty.

Tshisekedi was declared the surprise winner of a disputed presidential election, which some, including the influential Catholic Church, had challenged.

His main rival, Martin Fayulu, alleged that outgoing president Joseph Kabila had engineered a secret deal for Tshisekedi to succeed him – charges that were strongly denied.

Until a few years before the election, Tshisekedi was largely untested.

He is the son of the veteran late opposition leader Étienne Tshisekedi, and was immersed in politics from a very young age.

He also had to suffer the consequences of his father’s political activism.

When Tshisekedi senior founded the Union for Democracy and Social Progress party (known by its French initials UDPS) in 1982, the family was forced into internal exile in their hometown in the central Kasai province.

They stayed there until 1985, when Étienne Tshisekedi’s long-time rival, autocratic leader Mobutu Sese Seko, allowed the mother and children to leave.

Félix Tshisekedi then moved to the Belgian capital, Brussels.

UP THE RANKS

After completing his studies there he took up politics, working his way through his father’s party to become national secretary for external affairs for the UDPS.

His father’s former chief of staff, Albert Moleka, told the BBC in 2019 that Tshisekedi “made powerful friends and allies among the diaspora there, but he was sometimes overlooked – and so it wasn’t easy for him”.

Tshisekedi’s inauguration in 2019 inspired some hope, as it was the first peaceful transition of power in the country since independence in 1960.

At his swearing-in ceremony, he said he would make the fight against poverty a “great national cause”, reduce unemployment and tackle corruption.

At the end of his first year in power, he said political tensions in the country had eased as there were fewer political exiles, while the freedom and rights of individuals had been secured.

Now he is seeking a second term as the frontrunner in a hotly contested election, competing against 19 opposition candidates.

He is making some of the same promises he made five years ago, promising to tackle the insecurity that has wracked the east of the country for three decades, leading to the deaths of millions of people.

In a state of the nation address last month, he said the economy had improved, with the national budget having grown nearly threefold from US$6 billion at the beginning of his tenure to US$16 billion this year.

“We have come a remarkable way since 2020,” he said.

In spite of the growth, many Congolese have been complaining about the depreciation of the Congolese franc.

The president has also been criticised for making frequent trips abroad with little to show.

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FAILURE, SUCCESS

Despite its vast mineral wealth and huge population, life has not improved for most people, with conflict, corruption and poor governance still persisting.

Some of his key successes include introducing free primary schooling in 2019, with enrolment increasing by more than five million students.

The programme has, however, been criticised for the overcrowding of classrooms in some areas, while teachers remain poorly paid.

The president introduced free healthcare services for mothers giving birth in preselected health centres and hospitals in the capital, Kinshasa.

He has pushed for a review of the country’s mining contracts with China so it can keep a larger share of its vast mineral wealth.

Much of the country’s natural resources lie in the east, where violence still rages despite Tshisekedi’s attempts to deal with the situation by imposing a state of siege, ceasefire deals and bringing in regional troops.

These included a force from the East African Community, which the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) joined last year, hoping to improve trade and political ties with its eastern neighbours.

However, Tshisekedi has ordered them to leave, saying they had been ineffective.

He has said he wants to replace them with troops from the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

But there is little sign of them coming any time soon.

Tshisekedi has also demanded the end of the United Nations peacekeeping mission in the DRC.

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This has raised fears of a security vacuum.

The DRC’s membership of the East African Community is complicated by the fact that Tshisekedi, as well as UN experts, say fellow member Rwanda is backing one of the most active rebel groups in eastern DRC – the M23.

Rwanda’s government has strongly denied this, which has led to a souring of relations between Tshisekedi and his Rwandan counterpart, Paul Kagame.

It was not always that way. At the beginning of his term, Tshisekedi invited Kagame to the funeral of his father in May 2019.

In the latter years of his presidency, however, the relationship has become so frosty that Tshisekedi recently compared Kagame to Germany’s World War Two dictator.

CLEAR THREAT

Rwanda’s government has described the Congolese president’s comments as “a loud and clear threat”.

With no sign of an end to either the conflict in the east, or much of an economic improvement in the rest of the country, it has not exactly been the dream of the “Germany of Africa” Tshisekedi promised. – BBC