Joseph Kabila

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Joseph Kabila Kabange (born 4 June 1971) is a Congolese politician who served as President of the Congo from January 2001 to January 2019.

He took office ten days after his father, President Laurent-Désiré Kabila's assassination.

He was first elected president in 2006 and re-elected in 2011 for a second term.

According to the Constitution of the DRC, Kabila, as a former president after stepping down following the 2018 election, will be a senator for life.

Officials expected that elections would be held in November 2016, but the country's electoral authority reported on September 29th that the election will not be held until early 2018.

The discussion came about the need for a census before holding elections.

Joseph Kabila declared in August 2018 that he would step down and not seek re-election in the December 2018 general election.

Early life and education

Joseph Kabila Kabange and his twin sister Jaynet Kabila were born on June 4th, 1971. The twins were born in Hewabora, a small village in the Fizi province of the South Kivu province of eastern Congo, according to official accounts. Kabila was reportedly born in Tanzania, making him a citizen of the region, according to rumors. He is the son of a long-serving rebel, former AFDL president, and president of Congo Laurent-Désiré Kabila and Sifa Mahanya.

Kabila's childhood matched the lowest point of his father's political and military career. He was raised in relative anonymity, with no details about his early years. Before heading to Tanzania, where he completed primary and secondary school, Kabila attended a primary school run by his father's rebel forces. Kabila disguised himself as a Tanzanian in his school years to prevent detection by Zairean intelligence agents due to his father's status as a traitor of Zairean strongman Mobutu Sese Seko.

Personal life

On June 1, Kabila married Olive Lembe di Sita. On the 17th of June, the wedding reception took place. Since Kabila's mother, Kabila and his spouse have a daughter named Sifa, born in 2001.

Both the Catholic Archbishop of Kinshasa, Cardinal Frederic Etsou Bamungwabi, and Pierre Marini Bodho, the presiding bishop of the Church of Christ in Congo, were ecumenical, and the Protestant Church in Congo is known as "the Protestant Church" in the Congo.

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Career

Kabila began a military education in Tanzania and then at Makerere University in Uganda. Laurent-Désiré Kabila launched the campaign in Zaire in October 1996 to depose the Mobutu regime with his newly formed army, the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire (AFDL). Joseph Kabila became the commander of an AFDL unit that included "kadogos" (child soldiers) and reportedly played a significant role in major battles along the road to Kinshasa, but exact locations of the war have been difficult to determine. Joseph Kabila appears to have been at Kisangani's liberation where media reports identify him as the commander of the rebel army that took the city after four days of intense combat.

Following the AFDL's triumph and Laurent-Désiré Kabila's ascension to the presidency, Joseph Kabila went on to study at the PLA National Defense University in Beijing, China, continuing his education.

In 1998, Kabila received the rank of major-general and appointed Deputy Chief of Staff of the Democratic Republic of Congo. He was later named Chief of Staff of the Land Forces in 2000, a position he held until the assassination of elder President Kabila in January 2001. He served as the chief of staff during the Second Congo War (1998–2003).

After the assassination of Laurent-Désiré Kabila, Kabila's first head of government was born in the 1970s, Kabila assassinated him to the presidency on January 26, 2001. He was described as young and inexperienced at 29 years old. He later tried to end the civil war by enforcing peace deals with rebel groups backed by Rwanda and Uganda, the same regional armies that had brought Laurent-Désiré Kabila's rebel factions to power three years ago. Joseph Kabila, president and head of state of the Congo, was a member of the Inter-Congolese Dialogue in Sun City, South Africa, which nominally ended the Second Congo War. Under his leadership, an interim government was established, including the leaders of the country's two most influential rebel factions as vice presidents (two other vice presidents were leaders of the civil opposition and government supporters respectively). On March 28, 2004, an apparent coup attempt or mutiny in Kinshasa's capital, apparently by former soldiers of former President Mobutu Sese Seko (who was deposed by Kabila's father in 1997 and died in the same year) collapsed. On June 11, 2004, coup plotters led by Major Eric Lenge reportedly attempted to take power and announced on state radio that the transitional government was suspended, but loyalist troops were able to take power, but were defeated by loyalist troops.

A partial referendum in December 2005 approved a new constitution, and a presidential election was held on July 30th, having been postponed from a earlier date in June. The new constitution reduced the minimum age of presidential candidates from 35 to 30, while Kabila turned 35 right before the election. He ran as a candidate in March 2006. Despite Kabila's declaration as an outsider, he is the "initiator" of the People's Party for Reconstruction and Democracy (PPRD), which voted him as their candidate in the 2011 election. Despite the fact that the new constitution requires that a debate be held between the two remaining candidates for the presidency be held, no debate took place, and several of the candidates have declared this unconstitutional.

According to widely discredited provisional results published on August 20, Kabila gained 45% of the vote; his main challenge, vice president and former rebel leader Jean-Pierre Bemba, received 20 percent. The irregularities surrounding the election results prompted a run-off between Kabila and Bemba, which was held on October 29th. The official results were announced on November 15 by the electoral commission, and Kabila was declared the winner, with 58.0 percent of the vote. These findings were announced by the Supreme Court on Sunday, November 27, 2006, and Kabila was installed on December 6, 2006, as the country's newly elected president. Antoine Gizenga, who finished third in the first round of the presidential election and then supported Kabila in the second round, was appointed prime minister on December 30th.

In 2006, Kabila responded to evidence of widespread sex crimes committed by the Congolese military by describing the proceedings as "completely unforgivable." He pointed out that 300 soldiers had been found guilty of sex crimes, but that this wasn't enough.

In December 2011, Kabila was re-elected for a second term as president. Following the results' announcement on December 9, in Kinshasa and Mbuji-Mayi, where official tallies revealed a large majority had voted for opposition candidate Etienne Tshisekedi. Returns from almost 2,000 polling stations in areas where Tshisekedi's support for Tshisekedi was sporadic and not included in the official results had been reported, according to official observers from the Carter Center. They characterized the election as lacking credibility. Kabila was sworn in for a second term on December 20th, promising to invest in infrastructure and public services. However, Tshisekedi denied that the outcome of the election was illegitimate, and he said he planned to "swear himself in" as president.

Catholic bishops in DR Congo also condemned the 2012 general elections, accusing of "treachery, lies, and terror" and demanding that the electoral commission correct "serious mistakes."

Congo's parliament passed an electoral law on January 17, 2015, which requires a referendum prior to the next elections. On 19 January, student demonstrations at the University of Kinshasa broke out. Following the introduction of a law that would allow Kabila to remain in office until a national census can be conducted, demonstrations erupted (elections were scheduled for 2016). Despite the government's assertion that only 15 people had been killed by clashes between police and protesters on Wednesday, at least 42 people were killed by at least 42 deaths by January 21st.

Sen. John Kerry responded to protests by removing the census requirement from its constitution. In October 2015, Mo'se Katumbi declared that he would not leave the ruling party due to internal conflicts over the planned election.

In the Panama Papers, Jaynet Kabila, the sister of Kabila, was named. Through offshore subsidiaries, document leaks in 2016 revealed that she is a part-owner of a significant Congolese television company, Digital Congo TV, which is also based in the Congo region.

Kabila is widely unpopular, partly because of the violence in the Congo, but also because of the widespread belief that he has enriched himself and his family while still ignoring millions of poor Congolese. His attempts to alter term limits and extend his reign have sparked demonstrations. On April 20th, one of Congo's most important cities, Harsh protests erupted.

Moise Katumbi, the former governor of Katanga Province of Congo and now an opposition figure, declared himself running for president in an election that was supposed to be held by the end of 2016, but security forces threatened to arrest him.

Although Kabila's forces won a significant battle over one major rebel faction, the M23 in 2013, several other militant factions have broken into dangerous movements. And by 2016, new ones had appeared, like militias in the Nyunzu area that have killed hundreds of people.

President Kabila should not be allowed to serve more than two terms as a member of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Massive demonstrations in Kinshasa on September 19, 2016, demanding that he resign as constitutionally mandated. Eleven people were killed. On November 27, 2016, a referendum to elect a successor to Kabila was supposed to be held. The country's electoral authority announced on September 29th that the election will not be held until early 2018. The commission "hasn't called elections in 2016 because the number of voters isn't known," the commission's vice president said. However, opposition claims that Kabila had intentionally postponed the election in order to keep power.

The United States issued sanctions against two members of Kabila's inner circle, John Numbi and Gabriel Amisi Kumba, on September 28th, partly in reaction to the postponed election. These actions were seen as a warning to President Kabila that he should adhere to his country's constitution.

More demonstrations were planned to celebrate the inauguration of the presidential mandate. The result of the late polls, according to opposition parties, would be a civil war.

Maman Sidikou, the Secretary-General's Special Representative for DR Congo and the MONUSCO leader, warned that if the political situation is not stable, a tipping point into uncontrollable violence could occur quickly.

On December 20, 2016, Kabila's second term as president of the Democratic Republic of Congo was scheduled to end. Following a general election that will not be held until at least April 2018, Joseph Kabila will remain in office until a new president is elected, according to a statement issued by his spokesperson on December 19th. Kabila later elected a new cabinet led by prime minister Samy Badibanga, which resulted in demonstrations in which at least 40 people were killed. Should the president's office be vacant, Léon Kengo, the Senate's chairman, will assume the presidency in an acting capacity under articles 75 and 76 of the Constitution.

An agreement was reached between the main opposition party and the Kabila government on December 23, under which the latter decided not to update the constitution or leave office before the end of 2017. According to the deal, opposition leader Étienne Tshisekedi will ensure that the agreement is carried out and that the country's Prime Minister will be appointed by the opposition.

The ministry of international affairs of Botswana told Kabila in late February that it was time to move, and that "the country's desperate humanitarian crisis" had progressively stalled, and that "its leader has consistently postponed elections, and has lost sight of the country's security.

The presidential election to choose the successor to Kabila was held on December 30, 2018. Former Interior Minister Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, who was also endorsed by Kabila, was endorsed by the former interior minister. The electoral commission declared opposition candidate Félix Tshisekedi as the winner of the campaign on January 10, 2019.

Kabila has made the Kingakati farm his main residence since leaving the presidency. When he was still in power, the estate, which is 50 kilometers east of Kinshasa, was his second home.

President Felix Tshisekedi was able to depose the last remaining members of his administration who had been loyal to former Prime Minister Joseph Kabila in April 2021.

Tshisekedi requested a review of mining contracts signed by Kabila in May 20, particularly the Sicomines multibillion'minerals-for-infrastructure' arrangement.

After learnings of suspected embezzlement of $138 million, a judicial probe into Kabila and his associates was launched in Kinshasa in November 2021.

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