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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

DRC: Vice-presidential nomination results in controversy

KINSHASA, 5 May 2003 (IRIN) - Longtime opposition politician Arthur Z'Ahidi Ngoma was elected on Saturday by a segment of the political opposition in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) capital, Kinshasa, to serve as one of four vice-presidents of a two-year transitional government under President Joseph Kabila.

The international committee accompanying the transition in the DRC hailed Z'Ahidi Ngoma's selection, which, it said on Saturday, had been done "freely and without external interference".

"This is proof of the adherence of this party [the political opposition, one of the signatories of the inter-Congolese dialogue peace agreement] to democratic values," Hamadoun Toure, the spokesman of the UN Mission in the DRC, known as MONUC, said. MONUC has the chair of the international committee, which also comprises the ambassadors of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (China, France, Russia, the UK and the US), as well as ambassadors of other countries.

However, the election of Z'Ahidi Ngoma - the former deputy chairman of the Rwandan-backed Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie (RCD-Goma) - drew immediate criticism from another segment of the political opposition contesting the election.

"This election is unconstitutional," Eve Bazahiba, a delegate of the Union pour la democratie et le progres social (UDPS), told IRIN on Monday. "We have written to the national follow-up committee of the inter-Congolese dialogue and to the international committee accompanying the transitional government to ask them to disregard this nomination."

The UDPS of Etienne Tshisekedi, a veteran opposition politician known for his resistance to former DRC President Mobutu Sese Seko, together with the Parti Lumumbiste Unifie of Antoine Gizenga, are the two primary opposers of Z'Ahidi Ngoma's election, and have vowed to proclaim their own candidates on Monday.

"We will be communicating our own list to the national follow-up committee of the inter-Congolese dialogue [comprising the Kinshasa government, armed rebel movements, the unarmed political opposition, civil society and Mayi-Mayi militias, charged with putting a national transition government in place]," Bazahiba said.

A power-sharing agreement signed in December in Pretoria, South Africa, by all parties to the inter-Congolese dialogue nominally put an end to over four years of war, and called for the formation of a national transitional government.

Themes: (IRIN) Governance

[ENDS]

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