In a month, the Democratic Republic of the Congo will be in a state of constitutional crisis — though representatives of President Joseph Kabila’s government don’t see it that way.
The central African country is supposed to open its election season on Sept. 19 and hold a vote two months later. But citing budgetary and logistical constraints, Kabila’s administration is pushing for a longer timetable that would extend the president’s second term. The U.S. government — through U.S. Special Envoy to the Great Lakes Tom Perriello — is pressing for the democratic transition to proceed as scheduled. In the meantime, the U.S. Agency for International Development cannot afford to ignore politics and carry on with business as usual, according to USAID’s former mission director for the country.
Devex spoke with Tony Gambino, who served USAID in the Congo from 2001 to 2004, at the Brookings Institution, where he joined Perriello and François Nkuna Balumuene, the Congo’s ambassador to the United States, to share their respective views on the way forward to a peaceful political transition — and the U.S. development community’s role in supporting one.