Ariddia
07-02-2007, 19:27
The new government in the Democratic Republic of Congo was announced on Monday more than 10 weeks after President Joseph Kabila was declared the winner of bitterly contested and sometimes violent elections.
Headed by Antoine Gizenga, 81, named prime minister on December 30, the government has 60 members: six ministers of state, 34 ministers and 20 deputy ministers. There are nine women members.
Gizenga's appointment had been a near certainty, and had figured in electoral accords. The veteran politician served under the country's first prime minister, Patrice Lumumba, who was assassinated.
[...]
The task facing the new government is huge, as the country, exhausted by almost five years of war, needs urgent reform and still faces acute security problems.
Rwandan Hutu rebels of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) are still operating in eastern DRC.
Many members of the group are believed to have taken part in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, which left some 800,000 people dead, most from the minority Tutsi ethnic group, according to UN figures.
Kabila's coalition, the Alliance of the Presidential Majority, has taken most of the senior jobs in the government, including all those connected to reconstruction and security.
With the appointment of the government the long process of introducing democracy to the DRC marks another step, following the weekend installation of the 108 indirectly-elected senators.
After the presidential and legislative polls of 2006, the senatorial elections marked the end of the transition process in the DRC which began in 2003 after a regional war lasting almost five years.
Kabila's supporters dominate at all political levels: the national assembly, senate and governors' posts, as well as seven of the 11 provincial assemblies.
In November Kabila was proclaimed winner of the October 29 second round of the election, the first such poll held since independence in 1960.
He had been heading an interim government, including his political foes and former rebels, which saw the nation out of the 1998-2003 war and into a democratic transition.
But his government will need to win the confidence of foreign donors in a country with a multilateral debt of 10 billion euros (13.3 billion dollars), despite fabulous mineral wealth, and where his room for financial maneouvre is limited.
(Source (http://www.france24.com/france24Public/en/news/africa/20070206-congo-gouv.html))
Good luck to them. They're going to need it.
Headed by Antoine Gizenga, 81, named prime minister on December 30, the government has 60 members: six ministers of state, 34 ministers and 20 deputy ministers. There are nine women members.
Gizenga's appointment had been a near certainty, and had figured in electoral accords. The veteran politician served under the country's first prime minister, Patrice Lumumba, who was assassinated.
[...]
The task facing the new government is huge, as the country, exhausted by almost five years of war, needs urgent reform and still faces acute security problems.
Rwandan Hutu rebels of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) are still operating in eastern DRC.
Many members of the group are believed to have taken part in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, which left some 800,000 people dead, most from the minority Tutsi ethnic group, according to UN figures.
Kabila's coalition, the Alliance of the Presidential Majority, has taken most of the senior jobs in the government, including all those connected to reconstruction and security.
With the appointment of the government the long process of introducing democracy to the DRC marks another step, following the weekend installation of the 108 indirectly-elected senators.
After the presidential and legislative polls of 2006, the senatorial elections marked the end of the transition process in the DRC which began in 2003 after a regional war lasting almost five years.
Kabila's supporters dominate at all political levels: the national assembly, senate and governors' posts, as well as seven of the 11 provincial assemblies.
In November Kabila was proclaimed winner of the October 29 second round of the election, the first such poll held since independence in 1960.
He had been heading an interim government, including his political foes and former rebels, which saw the nation out of the 1998-2003 war and into a democratic transition.
But his government will need to win the confidence of foreign donors in a country with a multilateral debt of 10 billion euros (13.3 billion dollars), despite fabulous mineral wealth, and where his room for financial maneouvre is limited.
(Source (http://www.france24.com/france24Public/en/news/africa/20070206-congo-gouv.html))
Good luck to them. They're going to need it.