DRC's Senate Speaker and Kabila Ally Alexis Mwamba Resigns

Friday, February 05, 2021

DRC's then Justice Minister Alexis Thambwe Mwamba answers a journalist's question during a press conference in Paris, France, on December 23, 2008.

Bertrand Guay | AFP

By Patrick Ilunga

Correspondent in Kinshasa

Nation Media Group

Mr Mwamba’s tenure ended in the same context as that of Jeanine Mabunda, who was the president of the National Assembly until December 2020.

Kinshasa

Alexis Thambwe Mwamba, Speaker of the DRC’s Senate has resigned following a petition against him by 64 senators.

Mr Mwamba, a member of the Common Front for the Congo, did not arm-wrestle with his colleagues who held a full extraordinary session to examine the petition.

He was the last major cadre of the Front Commun pour le Congo (FCC) to head an institution in Kinshasa.

It is believed that he is paying the price for his execrable relationship with President Félix Tshisekedi.

He is still being investigated over the management of public funds, with his colleagues in the Senate criticising him for "opaque management of funds and public contracts".

Beyond these accusations, his boycott at the swearing-in ceremony of the judges of the constitutional court on October 22 hangs over his head.

Mwamba’s reaction

Mwamba, who did not appear before the senators to defend himself, sent a note saying "the judges were appointed under questionable conditions".  He claims to have said this to President Tshisekedi.

He denied the petitioners' allegation that he accused the President of violating the constitution.

"I never said the President violated the constitution,” he said.

Before Mr Mwamba’s resignation, five of his staff members quit in succession.

Only a relative of President Tshisekedi has not resigned. Samy Badibanga has not been targeted by the petitioners.

A few FCC senators filed a petition against him but the senators rejected it.

New National Assembly Speaker

Mr Mwamba’s tenure ended in the same context as that of Jeanine Mabunda, who was the president of the National Assembly until December 2020.

On Wednesday evening, legislators elected Christophe Mboso as new Speaker of the National Assembly in a stroke of change targeting pro-Kabila politicians.

Mboso won 389 votes, running unopposed after challengers were disqualified in a frantic evening in Kinshasa. He replaced Mabunda, a longtime ally of former President Joseph Kabila.

It was a statement  on President Tshisekedi’s new power in the legislature as he now boasts 391 national deputies in a vote in which 466 deputies casting the ballot.

President Tshisekedi and Mr Kabila have been at loggerheads for the last one year and their relationship worsened in December after a loose coalition they created in 2019 fell apart.

It was only a matter of when, not if, the leadership of the bicameral parliament would be changed.

Shifting alliances

Politicians shifted alliances perhaps to survive the imminent purge.

Before the fall of the office of his predecessor Mabunda, Mboso had been chairman of one of MR Kabila’s FCC parliamentary groups.

With the upheaval experienced by the National Assembly and after the end of the coalition with President Tshisekedi, Mboso temporarily took over, based on his seniority (at 78 years old, he is the dean of all deputies), the power of the National Assembly.

But he was quickly accused by the FCC of leaning on the President’s side and after a little over a month as the head of the Senate, he became the candidate of the Sacred Union of Felix Tshisekedi and organised the election. 

The Union is Mr Tshisekedi’s new coalition, built over hazy party lines in a rallying call to put the country’s interests first.

Mboso is a veteran in DRC politics. Several times a minister under Mobutu Seseseko, and a senator from the 1990s, he was again deputy under Joseph Kabila.

He was elected with all his allies, his first deputy being Jean-Marc Kabund, who is president of Mr Tshisekedi’s Union for Democracy and Social Progress.