PREVIEW
The president's hint that ‘the people’ may want him for a third term may be a trade-off with western countries seeking critical minerals
President Félix Tshisekedi’s suggestions that he could push for a third term and that the 2028 general elections could be delayed by the continued conflict in eastern Congo-Kinshasa, are a thinly veiled attempt to gauge international public opinion.
‘I have not asked for a third term, but I'm telling you – if the people want me to have a third term, I will accept,’ he said on 6 May.
However, the president’s Union pour la Démocratie et le Progrès Social tabled a bill in March that would set out the terms for a referendum, and a recent purge of his opponents in parliament look like calculated efforts to smooth the path to change the constitution (Vol 67 No 7, Tshisekedi purge ahead of term limit test).
Any extension to the presidential term limits, he added, would be subject to a referendum. Tshisekedi also conditioned the next elections on Rwanda, and the M23 militia group which it supports, ending their war in the Kivu region. Any delay to the polls would, in turn, prolong his own term in office.
Tshisekedi’s position has been boosted by the United States’ decision to impose sanctions on his predecessor Joseph Kabila, as well as the Rwandan army, for backsliding on the December peace agreement signed in Washington (Dispatches, 4/5/26, Washington turns on Kabila as Trump raises the cost for Rwanda in eastern Congo).
President Donald Trump’s opinion will be crucial to Tshisekedi’s future. The US has been silent on violence and electoral rigging that accompanied recent polls in Tanzania and Uganda and could give its backing to Tshisekedi if he delivers the access to critical minerals to US firms that was promised as part of the peace process.
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