Tshisekedi and the great purge: After the Presidency, the Government in the sights
At the Presidency of the Republic, the twilight of their “Excellences” Gentlemen Councilors has sounded. Many of those who adorned the precarious of the President of the Republic have cleared the floor. The next round of this turmoil is now being played out in the Government, where a technical reorganization is taking shape.
It is not good to be a special adviser or adviser at all to the Presidency of the Republic. These days, one wonders in the immaculately walled corridors of the presidential palaces who will be the next to suffer a humiliating downfall. At the Palais de la Nation as at the City of the African Union, we now shave the walls. You have to keep a low profile and, by a serious work of introspection, review all the dirty tricks in which you have taken an active part. It is an understatement to say that from now on, everyone is wary of everyone. You see "traitors" everywhere. Behind every flowerpot, the curtains, every closed door.
From small schemes to colossal bribes to influence peddling "on the orders of the High Hierarchy" which makes even members of the government tremble; processions with flashing lights and screaming sirens, the head of state's advisers had pushed indecency to surreal limits. Whether they come from the “diaspora” or fished out of the noisy backwater of “standing parliamentarians”, their Excellencies MM. the advisers (as they like to call themselves) ended up annoying public opinion and Félix Tshisekedi himself has heard about it for a long time. And reluctantly, he decided to crack down. It was time. Because his advisers, some of whom, it is said, have scandalously enriched themselves and openly boasted of the protection they claim to enjoy at the highest peak of the state.
In the beginning there was François Beya, all-powerful Special Adviser on Security to the Head of State, who fell overnight because of outrageous remarks (in the DRC we speak of insulting the Head of State). Relaxed after a few months spent in ANR jails and the central prison of Makala, he was released after a formal trial. Then came the turn of Vidiye Tshimanga, in charge of strategies. “Trapped” by fake investors who filmed him negotiating his share (20%) in setting up a deal in the mining sector, he was fired to dampen the public outcry. He too will be arrested, judged, then… released.
The dismissals systematically pronounced to the advantage of those close to Félix Tshisekedi implicated in scabrous cases ended up supporting the thesis according to which justice itself was under orders. And that the facade embastillments were intended to save face for a regime where predation had become the rule and integrity the exception. Above all, these parodies of justice have exacerbated the mistrust of investors with regard to a regime which claims to make the fight against corruption its hobbyhorse, mouthing the trumpet of the improvement of the climate of business.
THE GREAT CLEANUP HAS BEGUN
It was too much. Less than a year from the general elections, the President of the Republic has finally decided to sweep his court, and to clean up his stables at Augeas. To bring to heel these men and women who, believing themselves to be very powerful, invest television sets.
Under the pretext of extolling the “vision” of the Head of State, they were in fact engaged in their own premature electoral campaign.
Now, presidential advisers are falling like dead leaves. For having brought to light the underside of the agreements concluded by the Head of State and his Rwandan counterpart, Fortunat Biselele, known as "Bifort", was thanked.
His remarks in a program by journalist Alain Foka earned him an unexpected downfall. The opinion wondering if the private adviser of the Head of State had expressed himself on such a sensitive matter without the approval of the boss. According to some sources, he was heard on the premises of the ANR.
But, beyond the major cleaning that the President of the Republic has just carried out, the cursor is now placed on the Government where a profound reorganization is never again imminent.
Friday in the Council of Ministers, Felix Tshisekedi reversed his ministers that a tsunami was coming. Some – at least the great number – will be swept away by the winds of change. In the political parties members of the Sacred Union of the Nation, it is the vigil of arms.
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