The Democratic Republic of the Congo’s (DR Congo) volatile political crisis on Friday rumbled after church-led talks were forced into another day, edging closer to the legal limit for Congolese President Joseph Kabila to hold on to power.
The country’s Catholic episcopal conference (CENCO) had set Friday as the deadline to get the government and opposition to agree on a transition for the country after Kabila’s second and last legal term expires on Tuesday.
An election for a new head of state was supposed to have been held this year, but the authorities failed to organize the polls.
The 45-year-old president, who stepped into his assassinated father’s shoes in 2001 and is now ruling for a second elected term, is barred from a third mandate under the constitution.
Opponents accuse him of delaying the vote in the hope of tweaking the constitution to extend the Kabila family’s hold over a nation hugely rich in minerals that is almost the size of western Europe.
The international community has warned the current tension could lead to spiraling violence.
About two decades ago, the DR Congo sunk into the deadliest conflict in modern African history, its two wars in the late 1990s and early 2000s dragging in at least six African armies and leaving more than 3 million people dead.
The CENCO-sponsored talks launched early this month pit the ruling party and fringe opposition groups against a mainstream opposition coalition headed by veteran Kabila rival, Etienne Tshisekedi.
Sources close to the talks had said on Friday a deal was closing in on the date and organization of a presidential vote.
However, CENCO mediators returned from meeting members of Kabila’s Cabinet, declining to speak to the media and resuming talks with the rival groups behind closed doors.
Discussions are to resume today, they later said, but that round will be limited as the DR Congo’s bishops are leave for a long-planned visit to see Pope Francis.
The main sticking point in any future deal is the political fate of Kabila, who true to his reputation as a man of few words, has not announced his plans.
A democratic handover would break ground for the DR Congo’s 70 million people who since independence from Belgium in 1960 have never witnessed political change at the ballot box.
And in the past few years hundreds of people have died in political violence in the capital, Kinshasa, and elsewhere.
Tshisekedi and his allies had threatened nationwide protests from tomorrow to press Kabila to step down, but have opted to hold off pending the negotiations.
“If we win guarantees [on an election date and a pledge that Kabila will not seek a new mandate] we will speak to the people because the challenge begins from Dec. 19,” said Jean-Marc Kabund, the secretary-general of Tshisekedi’s party.
The government for its part has ordered social networks including Facebook and WhatsApp be blocked from 11:59pm today.
Police said they were setting up checkpoints in cities to “discourage criminal intentions that have started to take on worrying dimensions.”
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