The AU and UN seem to be taking Joseph Kabila’s bait as he makes his bid for another term, writes Peter Fabricius.
Just as the run-up to the Burundi crisis unfolded like an inevitable train smash in slow-motion for many months from late 2014 until the collision itself in April last year, another, possibly greater crisis, is coming down the tracks in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
And, just as in Burundi, neither Africa, nor much of the international community, are doing very much, at least visibly, to switch the points.
The AU recently appointed a special DRC envoy, Togo’s Edem Kodjo.
But he seems to have immediately put his foot in it on his only visit to Kinshasa by showing an apparent bias towards the government of President Joseph Kabila.
The problem in DRC is essentially the same as in Burundi; a president clinging to power by hook or crook, in defiance of very explicit constitutional term limits.
In DRC they stipulate that Kabila’s second and last term expires in November this year.
But he is resorting to all sorts of tricks to postpone his departure from office.
Last year he tried to insist that a national census - which would have taken ages - be done before elections. After days of violent protests, he withdrew that proposal.
Now his ruse is to contend that the voters' roll be updated before elections. And in January the “Independent” Electoral Commission announced that would take 18 months - pushing the elections back to sometime next year.
Yet the IEC itself had earlier estimated, when it called for tenders for companies to conduct the voter registration, that the process would take no longer than four months, Stephanie Wolters, Great Lakes expert at the Institute for Security Studies (ISS), pointed out in a seminar there last week.
The International Organisation of La Francophonie (IOF) had made a similar estimate.
Just as Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza successfully diverted the AU by bullying the Constitutional Court into declaring that he had only served one term constitutionally - despite being in office for 10 years - Kabila has launched a “national dialogue” to discuss the crisis.
So far all the main and credible political opposition and civil society groups have refused his invitation to participate, saying there is nothing to discuss as the constitution is absolutely explicit that his term should end in November.
And so Wolters said the AU special envoy Kodjo had jeopardised his credibility with the opposition by arriving in the DRC and giving the impression he was there to promote Kabila’s dialogue.
It seemed the AU had already taken Kabila’s bait.
Wolters suggested the UN, the EU and the IOF had not done much better because, together with the AU, they had issued an “ill-timed” statement on the eve of the launch of Kabila’s national dialogue, supporting an inclusive political dialogue on the crisis.
This had also suggested they backed Kabila’s initiative.
Especially because they had also not been explicit that elections should take place by the constitutionally-mandated deadline.
And Wolters said no one in the international community, except the US, had so far publicly questioned the DRC’s insistence that updating the voters' roll would technically take 18 months.
This amounted to implicit acceptance.
The US special envoy to the Great Lakes,Tom Perriello, is indeed then an exception in making it very clear the problem about the postponement of the elections “is political not technical. The technical problems are soluble”, he told me recently.
Kabila should be regarding Burundi as a “cautionary tale”, seeing how the economy had tanked and leaders had been sanctioned because of the crisis, he added.
“Everyone agrees that the DRC has the potential to be Burundi on steroids. On the other hand it could be a shining example, a happy ending, the first peaceful democratic transition in the country.
“Kabila has not yet passed any points of no return.”
Not yet.
But if the AU and others continue to chew on the bait, he probably will.
President Joseph Kabila has not yet passed any points of no return. Although everyone agrees the country has the potential to be Burundi on streroids, it could be a shining example of a peaceful transition if AU refrains from chewing on his bait.
Pretoria News