DRC president's first trips abroad: Angola, Kenya and Congo Republic

President of the Democratic Republic of Congo is set to make his first foreign trips, the presidency has announced. He will conduct a days’ trip to Angola, Kenya and Congo Republic starting Monday, February 4.

Felix Tshisekedi who took office on January 24 became the country’s fifth president taking over from Joseph Kabila. It was the first time the country had experienced a peaceful transfer of power.

His first stop will be in neighbouring Angola where he is expected to confer his counterpart Joao Lourenco.

He will travel over to East Africa specifically to Kenya on Tuesday and round up the outing in Brazzaville, capital of Congo Republic.

The foreign trips of new presidents are usually very keenly watched as it gives a hint into a leader’s foreign policy moves. Angola shares a long border with DRC with recent reports indicating that Congolese were being forcibly ejected.

The case of Kenya could be for the fact that the only sitting head of state that attended the swearing in ceremony in January was Kenya’s Uhuru Kenyatta. Most governments were represented by vice presidents, prime ministers and other lower ranking officials.

Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, was also the venue for the announcement of the political coalition between Tshisekedi and his coalition partner and current chief of staff, Vital Kamerhe.

The Cap for Change, CACH, coalition beat another coalition, Lamuka, led by Martin Fayulu in divisive and contested December 30, 2018 polls. The ruling party’s candidate Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary came third according to official results.

??DRC made history a week ago with a peaceful handover of power, but with the change came another fact – the country now has a living former president in Joseph Kabila.
He joins a list of other former African leaders: We zone in on the period 2015 – 2019#NewsAnalysis pic.twitter.com/ig7u3veelL

— africanews (@africanews) January 31, 2019