President of Cobalt Giant Congo Weighs Third-Term Referendum

Democratic Republic of Congo President Felix Tshisekedi said he’s prepared to seek another five years in office if asked to do so after a referendum, highlighting a growing trend of term-limit evasion in Africa.

MICHAEL J. KAVANAGH

An extension of Tshisekedi’s rule would present a direct challenge to the resource-rich Central African nation’s 2006 constitution, which limits presidents to two terms. It also risks further destabilizing a country that’s struggling to end a decades-long conflict in eastern Congo.

“I haven’t asked for a third mandate, but I say to you that if the people want me to have a third mandate, I will accept it,” Tshisekedi told reporters in the capital, Kinshasa, on Wednesday, May 6. He also signaled that the ongoing unrest in the east of the country may force the postponement of the elections slated for 2028.

At least 14 African nations have modified or scrapped term limits over the past two decades, while more than a dozen others either don’t have caps on tenure or have seen leaders take power outside the constitution or suspend it, according to the Washington-based Africa Center for Strategic Studies.

Term-limit evasion is linked to “higher levels of autocracy, corruption, conflict, and propensity for coups” on the continent, it said in a June 2024 report.

Congo is rich in reserves of minerals critical to energy, defense and technology, including copper, cobalt, lithium and tantalum and is drawing increasing US investor interest. Chinese companies currently dominate its mining industry.

The nation’s constitution was written in the aftermath of a 32-year dictatorship that ended in a series of wars that left the country one of the poorest in the world.

That period was followed by the 19-year rule of Joseph Kabila, whose security forces killed hundreds of people – including supporters of Tshisekedi – as he sought to extend his own two-term mandate in 2016, according to the United Nations.

Death Penalty

Tshisekedi, in power since 2019, succeeded Kabila after the two struck a deal in 2018 that ignored the results of an election and created a power-sharing government.

The two men eventually fell out, and last year Kabila was sentenced to death in absentia by a military court and sanctioned by the US last month for allegedly supporting a rebellion by the M23 armed group in eastern Congo. Kabila denies the claims and has called Tshisekedi a “dictator.”

Tshisekedi said the rebellion, which is backed by neighboring Rwanda, may delay the elections. M23 occupies the two largest cities in eastern Congo and a large swathe of North and South Kivu province.

“If we cannot end this war, unfortunately we will not be able to organize elections in 2028, but it won’t be because I refuse to organize them,” Tshisekedi said. “The resources are there; we can do it. But we can’t hold them without North and South Kivu.”

The president also said that an economic partnership Congo signed with the US in December called for governance and transparency reforms that require a constitutional change.

Amid the expanding partnership between the two nations, Congo has agreed to house migrants who’ve been denied asylum in the US, Tshisekedi said.

“We accepted amicably, simply because that was what the Americans wanted,” he said, calling it a service “between friends.”

Congo last month sold its first Eurobond, raising $1.25 billion in an offering that attracted bids for four times that amount. The yield on the 2035 debt fell 16 basis points to 9.62% on Wednesday, May 6.

Bloomberg