In 2018, when Félix Tshisekedi was elected as the president of the Democratic Republic of Congo, he formed an alliance in parliament between the two major parties in the government. The alliance was formed between the FCC, which is the party of former president Joseph Kabila, and the CACH, which is President Tshisekedi’s party. After two years of both parties trying to work together, this past week President Tshisekedi announced he was dissolving the alliance. Both parties have been clashing too much and standing in the way of reforms to bring stability to the country.
The political deadlock between the parties, and now the dissolving of the alliance, has exposed a crisis in the government that President Tshisekedi had been trying to avoid. Now, in an effort to resolve issues and begin reforms, he has proposed a two-pronged approach to resolve issues. One way is by having a designated mediator in parliament, tasked with forming a new majority. Kabila still has a hold on power in parliament, so Tshisekedi has to find very powerful people to be on his side in order to pass laws.
The former president, Kabila, who has the support of the FCC and was in power for 18 years, used to use more force to govern, rather than take mindful approaches to solve problems. President Tshisekedi has taken a more liberalist approach towards the problems in parliament. The method of using a mediator is very symbolic of increasing cooperation through communication. By trying to get the parties to work together and bring more stability to the government, more laws and reforms can be passed to benefit the citizens of the DRC.