DR Congo: Tshisekedi signs new referendum law amid third-term fears

By Rédaction Africanews and AP

DR Congo President Felix Tshisekedi has enacted a law that paves the way for a change to the constitution, condemned by the opposition as an attempt by the president to cling onto power.

The law eases the rules around holding a referendum on constitutional matters. It was enacted in an order read on national television overnight Tuesday to Wednesday. Tshisekedi, 63, has been in power since 2019 and under the current constitution has to step down at the end of his second five-year term at the end of 2028.

Opposition parties have joined forces in recent months to stand against his attempt to change the constitution and open the way for him to run for a third term. Tshisekedi declared at a rare news conference in early May that he had “not sought a third term” but said: “If people want me to have a third term, I will accept.”

Demonstrations called by the opposition to protest a “constitutional coup” took place in June and September in the capital, Kinshasa, and other cities. Weakened and fragmented after Tshisekedi’s landslide victory in the 2023 election, the opposition — which has recently grouped together in a platform called C64 — has struggled however to rally large numbers of people in the streets.

It comes with much of the eastern part of the vast central African country riven by conflict, where the Rwanda-backed M23 armed group seized swathes of territory last year.