'DRC politicians are dancing on a rumbling volcano'

Sebastien Brack, a political officer with the Kofi Annan Foundation has averred that politicians in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) ‘‘are dancing on a rumbling volcano.’‘

His views on the country currently living in political uncertainty about when next it would hold elections were published on the huffingtonpost news portal in an article titled, DRC: Chronicle of a Crisis Foretold?

Brack admits that the DRC is in a state of palpable anxiety especially in the capital Kinshasa. He however adds that the cause of the anxiety was ‘political.’ ‘‘The crux of the crisis in the making is neither technical nor financial, but political,’‘ he wrote.

READ: The Kofi Annan Foundation's Sébastien Brack on challenges to #democracy in the #DRC https://t.co/N34YuSgqCI pic.twitter.com/YMhLCq7Vbq

— Kofi Annan (@KofiAnnan) August 11, 2016

The ability to conduct a peaceful transition hinges on a voter register which has yet to be completed with barely months to the next poll. He further notes that the stakes this year are particularly high because the country ‘‘has never seen a peaceful transition of power from one democratically-elected leader to another.’‘

President Kabila has yet to state whether he has any intentions of running for another term in office, even though the opposition believes he is delaying processes towards an election which he is constitutionally barred from contesting in.

Brack, who is a graduate of Oxford University described as ‘controversial,’‘ a Constitutional Court ruling in May which allows Kabila to stay in power if elections do not hold as scheduled.

He asks whether the political dialogue being facilitated by the African Union (AU) mediator Edem Kodjo could steer DRC off the crisis track, given that the opposition have increasingly expressed their rejection of the processes in the lead up to the dialogue called by the president.