Struggle for the Constitution of the DR Congo: Nowadays Everything is Permitted
This opinion column contrasts the optimism of 2006, when the German Bundeswehr helped secure the DR Congo's first free elections, with the grim reality of 2026. Twenty years later, the constitution is being dismantled, free political activity is suppressed, and the world looks away. President Joseph Kabila, who won the 2006 elections, built an autocratic and corrupt system before handing power to loyalist Félix Tshisekedi in 2018. Tshisekedi has made some reforms but political freedoms have eroded. Rwanda-backed rebels control eastern cities, Kabila has been sentenced to death in absentia, and the pluralistic media landscape of 2006 has given way to paranoid patriotism. The UDPS party, now in power, boycotted the 2006 elections and rejected the constitution.
Editorial responsibility
- No named human review is recorded for this page.
- Reports are grouped by semantic similarity and deterministic rules. Language models may assist titles, summaries, translation and cross-source analysis; the page itself is projected from evidence records.
- Current automated evidence projection