Reply To: Congolese expects a new management of governors

[Congo]

The country is going very badly. Congolese. December 2017 approach ”. This is the call of the Bishops launched yesterday, Friday June 23, 2017, in a new thunderous statement issued after the 54th Ordinary Session of the CENCO held in Kinshasa. The Bishops, conscious of their pastoral role, are mobilizing for peace, elections and democratic alternation. They say it themselves, in this declaration with boumerang effects. But who will listen to them? The question remains, however, as long as they have not received favorable echo from the authorities, the Congolese people and the international community.

Diagnostic

The Bishops, drawing up a gloomy picture of the country’s overall situation, consider that the only roadmap, the only one that can bring the country out of the impasse, is that of the full and immediate implementation of the Agreement Of 31 December 2016, which provided, inter alia, for the organization of elections at the end of December 2017, the institution of a transition punctuated by consensual management not exceeding 12 months, the destabilization of the political climate, with the release of certain figures Emblematic of the Opposition and, above all, the abandonment of certain legal proceedings, administrative or police harassment against some opponents and the consecration of the freedom of opinion and public demonstrations.

Where is the CNSA?

In the same Agreement, as negotiated at the Interdiocesan Center, Gombe, there was also provision for the establishment of a National Council for the Follow-up of the Agreement, CNSA, Etienne Tshisekedi wa Mulumba, Was to preside over to ensure the successful completion of the transition process with a view to holding credible, transparent, democratic and peaceful elections. ” In tempore on suspecto ”, it is said. The agreement proscribed any likelihood of going to a referendum, just as it would banish any idea of ​​constitutional revision. The current Head of State, Joseph Kabila Kabange, under the terms of the New Year’s Eve Agreement, remained in office until the effective establishment of his elected successor.

Focus on elections

The Bishops consider, however, that in order to arrive at the elections within the deadlines set by the Agreement, it was necessary that voter registration should take place in record time and that an electoral calendar and an electoral register should be published before At the end of July 2017. However, to date, the pace of this enrollment in the dropper, worried less than it reassures. The Bishops, in their defending body, believe that by the time of December 2017, it is more than time to challenge the Congolese authorities, the CENI, the government and the Congolese people so that arrangements are made, To avoid, certainly, falling into a new trap of institutional and political stagnation.

Thorns

The death of Tshisekedi wa Mulumba on 1 February 2017 at the Clinique Sainte Elisabeth in Brussels, Belgium, shortly before the signing of the Particular Arrangement which was supposed to serve as a basis for the application of this Agreement, paradoxically complicated The equation, with the atomization of the Rally, its mega political platform. Moreover, the appointment and nomination of two Prime Ministers, within a few months, in the absence of a genuine consensus, would not have contributed to the progress of the mechanisms which, Putting the electoral process back on track once and for all. The Bishops, drawing lessons from the cataclysm and the chaos on the horizon, demand that the elections be held at the end of December 2017. They also rely on the Congolese people and invite them to Take its destiny into its own hands. To the international community, the Bishops ask for a significant accompaniment to the normalization of the electoral process, although it is still confronted, at least, so far, with many pitfalls.

Hello ?

Salvation is also in line with UN Security Council Resolution 2348, which, since March 2017, recalled the urgent need for all parties engaged in direct discussions not to step on Spirit and letter of the December 31, 2016 Agreement, laboriously negotiated, from December 8, 2016 to March 27, 2017.

Temperature

As for the drama at Grand Kasai, the Bishops have no tongue in their pockets.

They demand an independent and serious investigation into these inhuman afflictions. The socio-economic situation undermines the main levers and aggregates of the macroeconomic framework, the brutal and vertiginous fall of the Congolese Franc, the surge in the prices of goods and services on the market, Speculation and other deterioration of the business climate, threats to strike, and all the disturbances that are undoubtedly true signs of a disaster with multiple feuds and collateral damage.

Call

Yet a little good governance was enough to stop this descent into the underworld. Why, then, do we not go back to the spirit that prevailed in 2016, when, for example, we had to approach the last straw before the end of President Kabila’s second and last term? They wonder, in terms that are unique to them, but quite understandable, if we are to identify the substance of their approach. They recommend, on the whole, a return to good feelings and a burst of patriotic pride. In any case, discover, in extenso, this new declaration of the Bishops, which naturally raises mountains.