The year 2023 will see the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) head to polls in December, if all goes according to plan.

 

Besides the Ensemble movement leader and Katanga’s former governor, Moïse Katumbi, Congolese doctor, Dr Denis Mukwege, is one of the other people set to run against the incumbent Félix Tshisekedi for President of the DRC in 2023. The influx of candidates includes Augustin Matata Ponyo, Joseph Kabila’s former prime minister, and Martin Fayulu, who continues to claim victory in the 2018 presidential election.

 

Mukwege, largely seen as one of the West’s new pawn in DRC, has begun mobilizing his supporters to vote for him in the upcoming presidential elections.

 

The gynecologist has criticised Tshisekedi's handling of security in the vast country’s restive east, saying the President's "diplomacy" is contributing to "worsening instability," but offered no sound solution that tackles the root causes of insecurity in the region.

 

The question now is: is Dr Mukwege the right choice, or candidate, for the Congolese who have suffered from decades of bad leadership?

 

Dr Mukwege, 67, is the founder of the Panzi hospital in Bukavu, the capital of South Kivu province, which treats women who have been victims of sexual violence. 

 

The gynecologist says his country’s insecurity issues are a result of blatant lack of leadership and governance by an irresponsible and repressive regime.

 

But is he clean?

 

In December 2015, Dr Mukwege was accused of fraud. His Panzi hospital’s accounts were frozen after the tax authorities found that the hospital had not paid a tax bill of Euros 500,000. He argued that his hospital is registered under the non-profit organization Pentecostal Churches in Central Africa (CEPAC) and that as a national referral center, it should be exempt from taxes.

 

For decades, DRC continues to exceed corruption and fraud cases in comparison to most states in the region, with Kinshasa lacking the political will to eradicate the problem.

 

Should Congolese vote for a man accused of corruption to fight the same crime he is accused of?

 

Mukwege was involved in yet another corruption scandal in December 2022.

 

Mukwege sat on the honorary board of the human rights group Fight Impunity, established in 2019 by former Italian Socialist MEP Pier Antonio Panzeri, who is now in jail pending trial in relation to the scandal.

 

Fight Impunity is among the groups at the heart of the so-called Qatargate corruption allegations, centered on whether Qatar and Morocco bought influence in the European Parliament. The NGO was used as a shield for illegal transactions.

 

Mukwege is one of a long list of luminaries who Panzeri persuaded to join his honorary board. Belgian authorities seized €1.5 million in cash amid raids around Brussels and made several arrests of members of the European Parliament.

 

In an attempt to protect the Congolese gynecologist, Mukwege’s Panzi Foundation said it “never received financial support from the NGO Fight Impunity; nor has our President participated in any of its meetings.” A spokesperson for Mukwege clarified that the statement referred to in-person meetings. They also said he resigned from the honorary board.

 

Recall that the Mukwege won the European Parliament’s 2014 Sakharov Prize for his work to combat sexual violence in DRC. Receiving funds and prizes from such corrupt institutions makes one wonder just how noble his charitable works really are. Right?

 

In a December 2022 joint statement with other political opponents, Fayulu and Matata Ponyo, Mukwege accused Tshisekedi of pushing DRC towards breakup by bringing in outside nations to tackle its security crisis. The trio called the United Nations Security Council and all peace-loving and justice-loving countries to condemn Rwanda, for alleged aggression against the DRC, in violation of the United Nations Charter and the immediate withdrawal of M23 rebels from all positions they occupy.

 

 Clearly,  Mukwege – just like Tshisekedi – is in denial about the M23 rebellion being a domestic issue that should be solved internally. Like most of the currently warmongering Congolese politicians, Mukwege intentionally ignores the threat posed by the presence of Rwandan genocidal forces, the FDLR, in eastern DRC. The FDLR are remnants of the masterminds of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda.

 

 

Mukwege also fails to acknowledge his country’s dysfunctional leadership crisis, among other issues internal, and lacks the political will and diplomatic clout necessary to address the crisis in a country he claims to love. 

 

Electing him will cause more chaos.

 

 Mukwege is using his long-curated fame as the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize winner to pursue his minders’ political interests. Mukwege would have served the Congolese population much better if he continued his work at the Panzi hospital and not dabbled in politics to serve his Western minders’ selfish interests.