DR Congo s Tshisekedi names new PM after power struggle
Issued on:
15/02/2021 - 18:56 3 min
Kinshasa (AFP)
DR Congo President Felix Tshisekedi on Monday named Jean-Michel Sama Lukonde Kyenge, head of the state mining giant Gecamines, as prime minister following a prolonged tussle for power with allies of his predecessor.
Sama Lukonde, 43, whose appointment was announced in a decree read on nationwide TV, succeeds Sylvestre Ilunga Ilunkamba, who was forced out after a coalition between supporters of Tshisekedi and former president Joseph Kabila broke down.
The months-long crisis was seeded in the outcome of elections in December 2018 that led to the first peaceful transition of power in the Democratic Republic of Congo s history.
The East African
Saturday January 30 2021
Sylvestre Ilunga Ilunkamba, who resigned as DR Congo’s Prime Minister on January 29, 2021. PHOTO | RODGER BOSCH | AFP
Summary
Mr Ilunga was dismissed by the vote of parliamentarians on Wednesday, as 367 of the 500 deputies in Parliament voted for the removal of the Prime minister and his government.
On Wednesday, he angrily said he did not recognise the authority of the assembly s provisional bureau, which oversees legislative affairs, to organise a censure vote.
Advertisement
Kinshasa,
DR Congo’s Prime Minister Sylvestre Ilunga Ilunkamba resigned on Friday, a day after the National Assembly censured him for incompetence.
He and his team will manage current affairs until the next government is appointed.
Daily Monitor
Saturday January 30 2021
Summary
Mr Ilunga, 73, was appointed by President Tshisekedi in May 2019 under a power-sharing deal that he and Mr Kabila struck when handing over the presidency the first peaceful transition in the Democratic Republic of Congo s history.
President Tshisekedi s proposed Sacred Union of the Nation wields support from 391 lawmakers, according to an envoy, Senator Modeste Bahati, who was appointed to try to forge a majority.
Advertisement
He and his team will manage current affairs until the next government is appointed.
Mr Ilunga was constitutionally required to resign after being censured by the National Assembly on Wednesday.
DR Congo’s prime minister,
, resigned on Friday, the presidency said, a move enabling President Felix Tshisekedi to appoint his own premier supported by a new parliamentary majority.
Presidency spokesman Giscard Kusema told AFP that Illunga “said he had drawn the consequences of the developing political situation.”
Ilunga was constitutionally required to resign after being censured by the National Assembly on Wednesday.
He is a close ally to former president Joseph Kabila whose supporters have been locked in a tussle for power with Tshisekedi since he took office two years ago.
Kusema said it was “too soon” to say when Tshisekedi would appoint the next prime minister.