Regional
DRC President Tshisekedi appoints new prime minister
The Democratic Republic
of Congo (DRC) President Felix Tshisekedi on Monday, February 15, appointed the
director general of Gecamines (General Quarries and Mines), the state mining
company, Sama Lukonde Kyenge, 43, as the new prime minister. The
development comes soon after Sylvestre
Ilunga Ilunkamba, a close confidant of Tshisekedi's once-dominant predecessor,
Joseph Kabila, resigned from the post on January 28 following a
vote of no confidence in the country's parliament.
Lukonde's
appointment, analysts say, should help Tshisekedi install a more loyal cabinet
to push through his agenda. In
2015 Lukonde, the son of Stéphane Lukonde Kyenge, a key figure in Katanga
politics assassinated in 2001, was minister of youth and sport for nine
months. An
engineer by training, he was once a member of the Future of Congo political
party.
Ilunga's recent resignation meant that
Tshisekedi was free to appoint a prime minister from his own parliamentary
majority. In December last year, the Congolese President dissolved the
alliance between his own coalition party Cap for Change (CACH) and that
of the former president -The Common Front for Congo (FCC). Since Tshisekedi’s
election in January 2019, his government found it difficult to pass and
implement important decisions due to the fact that Kabila had the numbers in
parliament that blocked and undermined the government's plans.