Iris Salemi is a last year International Relations student at King's. She lived in Morocco and South Africa, which allowed her to develop a passion for African culture and geopolitics, and later would like to work in the service of African development. She believes that the African continent, although being the driver of tomorrow's challenges, should be more regarded and known, hence she will do everything to make African affairs accessible to everyone! In addition to Africa, she is interested in post-colonial political economy, Latin America and diplomacy in international institutions.
The year 2023 ended not without rest for the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). On December 20th, 44 million Congolese voted to define their new president, revealing organisational issues regarding the scale of the DRC. The stakes of these elections, too, spread over a large scale: on the agenda the conflict in the North and South Kivu regions, the economic crisis and better management of natural resource extraction. On December 31st, the results were announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI). Verdict: no new president. Félix Tshisekedi, the current president of the DRC, won a second term, with 73.34% of the vote. A voice was heard, that of the Church. Indeed, already 6 months before the elections took place, the Congolese Church, represented by the Congo National Episcopal Conference (CENCO) and the Christ Church in the Congo (ECC), had contested the lack of transparency of the CENI and had since called on the elections to respect the constitution and democratic values. What is the relationship between democracy, stability and the Church in the DRC?
The Church as a Mobilising Force
Under Belgian colonialism, the Church was unofficially separated from the state. It supported and complemented it, particularly regarding health and education. It did not comment on public affairs nor the management of the country, and the spheres of action of the state and the Church generally did not meet. At the independence of the DRC in 1960, the Church emerged as a powerful, but relatively unpopular, actor. And throughout the post-independence construction of the DRC, the Church took a relatively silent position, always a fundamental player in health services and education. To the point where it acted where the government in crisis was absent, particularly among poor populations.
Under Mobutu, the dynamic changed. Mobutu wanted to reduce the power of the Church. The Congolese state nationalised schools and other public services that had until then been administered by the Church. This created discontent among the ecclesiastical community. To these nationalisation policies was added a shadow network, characterised by corruption, nepotism and clientelism, leaving millions of Congolese in hunger and misery. The status of the country alarmed the Church, who ended up taking a public position on political affairs. In March 1990, a letter to Mobutu was published by bishops, denouncing the combination of private property with authoritarian tools of control and corruption of the state. This letter also called for the creation of a new constitution that guaranteed Congolese participation in national decision-making and democracy. The bishops' letter had a significant impact because it legitimised previous demands for democracy. This letter also marked the official break of the Church with its past role of complement of the state and silent actor in the country's political affairs. Thus, the letter made it possible to bring onto the public stage a national dialogue for a new constitution.
The power and political influence of the Church gradually increased. On February 16th 1992, the ecclesiastical community organised a peaceful demonstration "for peace and hope", mobilising 1 million people. This demonstration was violently repressed by Mobutu's state and took the lives of more than 30 young people. The Church therefore became a major actor in resistance to the oppression of Mobutism. It became the incarnation of the "Voice of the Voiceless", filling the state's vacuum among vulnerable populations. Thus, it had a major power to mobilise populations for the democratic order and against the Mobutist dictatorship.
The role that the Church played in the democratisation of the DRC in the 1990s granted it the function of guarantor of the democratic order after the overthrow of Mobutu in 1997 and the arrival of Laurent-Désiré Kabila, then Joseph Kabila, and now Félix Tshisekedi.
The Church as Guarantor of the Democratic Order
The Church counters the CENI's power who is close to the state and accused of serving the interests of the government, at the expense of the democratic order. However, the Church says it must act in complementarity with the CENI, and not in opposition to it. The CENCO carries out its vote count at the same time as the CENI and their results are compared to reach a consensus on the elected officials.
To do so, the Church deployed 25,000 observers for the December 2023 elections, as well as 11,000 people with the role of poll watchers. In each polling station in the DRC, observers are supposed to send a report of the smooth running of the elections. These reports are then sent to a data collection and processing centre. The centre compares the results of the CENI and the CENCO to highlight possible fraud. The elected officials are announced a few days later, when the results reach a consensus.
The Church has a central role in legitimising electoral results. For the 2019 presidential elections which brought Félix Tshisekedi to power for the first time, the CENCO questioned the results announced by the CENI. This accusation cost Félix Tshisekedi dearly. During his five-year term, he had a reputation for illegitimacy and a lack of support from the Church. Faced with this, Félix Tshisekedi joined Mobutu in his quest to diminish the power of the Church in the public sphere. He continued his attempts to nationalise schools, in particular by making certain schools that had until then been free, thus reducing the territorial influence of the Church.
The Church therefore plays a role as the guarantor of the democratic order – although fragile – and legitimiser of the government in power. However, the Church is struggling to stay out of these issues, and its involvement in politics could also represent threats to the stability of the country.
Church and Stability: A Complex Relationship
The Church presents three main problems which remove any hope of peace in the battered country.
Firstly, there is often talk of the "Zairianisation of the Church". The ethnic conflict opposing the 'Indigenous' Congolese to the Tutsi appears within the Church: certain bishops are Tutsi, hence suspected of being close to the Tutsi refugees who are believed to prepare the invasion of eastern DRC; other archbishops are expected to support the cause of the 'Indigenous' Congolese, and therefore to discriminate against the Tutsi. This goes against the role of moral superiority that the Church is supposed to have, and on which the legitimacy of the Church rests. Thus, the Church becomes an active participant in the conflict.
Secondly, the Church can harm stability, particularly because of its colonial past. Indeed, the material and spiritual power of the Church comes from Belgian colonialism, and the Church was a central tool of Belgian power to evangelise the Congolese population. Even after independence, the relationship between Church and state remains present, which is an issue for the work of the Church in the Kivus, accused of supporting the Congolese State or of continuing to serve the interests of Belgium and the Western community through neo-colonial means. This questions the neutrality of the Church as a pacifying actor.
Lastly, through its struggle for democratisation, the Church has further destabilised the country. The supposedly peaceful demonstrations organised by the Church for the democratisation of Congo have always led to an escalation of violence and to a hardening of state power. Although the Church played a role in the democratisation of Congo in the 1990s, it was mainly the end of the Cold War, and consequently the end of US support to Mobutu that forced Mobutu to open its political system. The Church was able to exploit this context to present itself as leading the democratic movement. But if the Cold War had not ended, Mobutu's regime would only have toughened its leadership and more people would have lost their lives. The intervention of the Church in the public sphere harms public harmony, by adding the religious factor to all the other factors which characterise the complexity of the conflict in the DRC.
Conclusion
Studying the relationship between the Church, stability and democracy in the DRC opens up broader questions applicable to any context: firstly, what should the relationship between the State and the Church be? Second, what is the relationship between democracy and conflict? Does the democratic end justify the means? Does democracy need violence to succeed? Finally, what is the relationship between identity and conflict? How does one define its identity without opposing that of others? Does the Church have a duty to grant a religious identity to bring peace? Or should it stay away not to add the religious factor to an ethnic conflict? At least, one thing is certain: the Church tried to build a Tower of Babel by engaging in the struggle for the democratisation of a country in deep structural crisis. By setting such an ambitious mission, the Tower is collapsing. Is this a punishment of God or a simple reflection of the reality hitting the DRC? Only the future will tell.
Image Credit: CAS-INFO.CA, 2020
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