NEWSMAKER-Ex-guerrilla Kabila wins Congo ballot box mandate
Source: Reuters
By David Lewis KINSHASA, Nov 27 (Reuters) - Joseph Kabila, who became Democratic Republic of Congo's president when his father Laurent was assassinated in 2001, has now gained a mandate through the ballot box to rule the vast, mineral-rich country. The Supreme Court confirmed the 35-year-old on Monday as winner of presidential elections meant to bring a new era of stability to the former Belgian colony after years of war, dictatorship and chaos. Kabila has enjoyed the support of Western governments like the United States and France, regional allies like South Africa and Angola, and businessmen and mining magnates who have signed multi-million dollar deals under his rule. Like his election rival, ex-rebel chief and Vice-President Jean-Pierre Bemba, whose challenge the Supreme court threw out, Kabila is a former guerrilla fighter who participated in nearly a decade of war that ravaged the central African country. He fought alongside his father in a military campaign from the east that in 1997 ended dictator Mobutu Sese Seko's more than 20 years as the despotic and corrupt leader of the nation he had renamed Zaire. But when Laurent Kabila was killed by a bodyguard five years ago, his publicity-shy son, who received military training in China, was installed as the world's youngest head of state. He swapped his military fatigues for business suits, but -- in contrast to his jovial father -- remained a reserved figure, giving few news conferences and a minimum of low-key speeches. He cuts a very different figure from Congo's fiery, leftist post-independence leader Patrice Lumumba, an African revolutionary icon, who was murdered in 1961. Kabila has promised to rule by consensus to try to heal the raw scars of Congo's many conflicts. "The effort now must be nation building, it must be reconstruction ... The government that will be put in place will be a government of coalition," he told reporters this month. His rival, Bemba, and other members of the opposition will have a role to play in this, he added. HERO OF THE EAST Though revered in the Swahili-speaking east, where he is widely credited with helping to end Congo's 1998-2003 war, he is less liked in the west, where Lingala is spoken, a language he does not know well. His enemies even question whether he is "a true son of Congo", labelling him a foreigner because of the time he spent as a child and adolescent in family exile in East Africa. With the cooperation of the international community, and the biggest United Nations peacekeeping force in the world, he presided over a complex, sometimes stumbling peace process leading to Congo's first free polls in more than four decades. Congo is a treasure trove of gold, copper, cobalt, diamonds and other minerals, but lacks basic infrastructure and has only a few hundred kilometres (miles) of paved roads. The war created what aid workers call one of the world's worst humanitarian crises which has already killed around 4 million people. Some 1,200 Congolese still die every day from violence, hunger and disease. One of around 10 children by several mothers, Kabila was born in the copper-rich southeast province of Katanga on June 4, 1971, his official biography says. He spent most of his formative years in East Africa where his father Laurent went into exile after fighting against Mobutu in a failed Cuban-backed rebellion in the 1960s.
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