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Zaire The Party-State as a System of Rule
The initial orientation of the Mobutu regime was
antipolitical
and antiparty. The announcement of the November 25, 1965,
coup
began by contrasting the performance of the armed
services, alleged
to be "satisfactory," with the "complete failure" of the
previous
political leaders, who had "shut themselves up in a
sterile
struggle to gain power without any consideration for the
well-being
of the citizens of this country." Although the
proclamation made no
explicit mention of political parties, there were signs of
danger
for the existing parties in the message Mobutu sent to the
joint
session of the legislature on the afternoon after the
coup. The
message reiterated that the new government (whose members
represented areas of the country, not parties) would serve
for only
five years, and that a régime d'exception (in
essence a
state of emergency) would be imposed throughout the
country.
Political activities by parties were suspended. The
parties
themselves were not dissolved, however, and several of
them issued
communiqués in support of the coup.
One reason for taking no action against the political
parties
during the early weeks of the regime was that Mobutu still
needed
their support. The first government after the coup, headed
by
Colonel Léonard Mulamba as prime minister, relied to a
considerable
extent upon the politicians of the 1960-65 era. But that
reliance
was nowhere acknowledged in Mobutu's public
pronouncements. On the
contrary, his continuing verbal assaults on the
politicians
presaged his attempts both to reduce their participation
in his
government and to create a personal instrument of power.
Mobutu claimed to depoliticize the nation by abolishing
conventional political parties but then formed his own
sole party,
the MPR. Unlike the sweeping measures of later years,
instituted
almost overnight on the basis of little apparent
preparation, the
creation of the MPR was an incremental process, occurring
over a
period of about sixteen months. The first step was the
creation of
the Corps of Volunteers of the Republic (Corps des
Volontaires de
la République--CVR).
The Mobutu coup had taken place in the context of
intense
activity on the part of the political "youth movements" in
the
capital. Two days earlier, the League of Young Vigilantes
(Ligue
des Jeunes Vigilants) had organized a militant
demonstration of 200
people at the Belgian embassy in Kinshasa. According to
its
statutes, the purpose of the league was "to fight
resolutely and
firmly against the forces which destroy national
consciousness and
the sense of responsibility, to assure the education and
the
encadrement of the people in order to build a truly
free
Congo, rid of the fear of imperialism, of the exploitation
of man
by man, [and] of obscurantism, [and] oriented toward the
route of
progress of the popular masses." The CVR, and later the
MPR, would
echo the diffuse radicalism of this pronouncement. Mobutu
seems to
have viewed such groups both as a threat to be harnessed
and as
potentially valuable allies in the struggle against the
old
politicians.
The formation of the CVR was announced to the public on
January
9, 1966. A serious attempt was made to co-opt the
leadership of the
General Union of Congolese Students (Union Générale des
Etudiants
Congolais--UGEC), the most articulate and radical of the
youth
organizations. Both UGEC president N'Kanza Dolomingu and
former
UGEC secretary for international affairs Kamanda wa
Kamanda figured
on the initial list of CVR leaders, but both declined to
participate. Subsequent events suggest that either the
ideological
gap was too great to be bridged, as in the case of
N'Kanza, who was
imprisoned, or that such elements had to be co-opted on
the highest
level, e.g., in the case of Kamanda, who was named
secretary
general of the presidency in December 1966, after the
prime
ministership had been abolished in October and Mobutu
became head
of government
(see The
Presidency
, this ch.).
The CVR established branches throughout the capital and
in at
least some of the provinces. At its first national seminar
(in
Kinshasa in December 1966), the group declared its
ideology to be
"nationalism." "Economic independence" and
"nationalization of the
education system" were set as major objectives.
The CVR referred to itself as a vanguard movement
rather than
a party, and its contradictory statements regarding
parties
doubtless reflected the fact that Mobutu's own opinion on
the
subject was evolving. In fact, Mobutu faced a dilemma. The
term
politician had become virtually synonymous with
thief
or traitor. At the same time, particular parties
and
politicians retained substantial credit with their
respective
constituencies. The May 1967 Manifesto of N'Sele, charter
of the
MPR, affirmed that the government administration would
have to be
reorganized and new personnel brought in. It would have to
be
"detribalized" and "depoliticized." Little was said as to
how this
would be accomplished. Administrative personnel were
upgraded, but
no major reorganization took place. Rather than being
"depoliticized," the administration was merged with the
MPR.
At first the MPR was given a separate structure on all
levels
below that of the president. Then, following a series of
disputes
between government and party officials on the same level,
e.g.,
regional commissioner and regional president of the MPR,
the
duality was eliminated. At the beginning of 1972, the
regional
commissioner became head of the MPR on the regional level,
the
collectivity chief, head of the party in the local
collectivity,
and so on.
Under such a system, "politics" (competition for
rewards and
for control over distribution of rewards) still existed,
but in the
hands of the administrators. There were party committees
at each
level of the administrative structure. In a typical rural
zone, the
MPR committee comprised the zone commissioner and his two
assistant
commissioners, the director of the Youth of the Popular
Revolutionary Movement (Jeunesse du Mouvement Populaire de
la
Révolution--JMPR), the commander of the gendarmerie, the
secretary
of the National Union of Zairian Workers (Union Nationale
des
Travailleurs Zaïrois--UNTZA), and the chiefs of the
collectivities
that made up the zone.
Paradoxically, the fact that the party was everywhere
undermined its significance; everyone was included in it
(all
Zairians were considered to be members by birth; the MPR
was
regarded as the "nation politically organized"). The only
distinguishable MPR institutions were the Political Bureau
and
(later) the Central Committee and the JMPR, or party youth
wing.
Suffrage was universal and compulsory at age eighteen,
but the
system offered no real political choice. All electoral
choice or
competition supposedly took place within the MPR. All
presidential
elections (1970, 1977, and 1984) were essentially
plebiscites, with
Mobutu as the only candidate.
Parliament was restored in 1970, but it had very
limited
ability to influence the policy-making process. Nor were
individual
members of parliament able to play a linkage role between
their
constituents and the center to any significant extent.
Under the
system instituted in 1970, the population was asked to
approve a
single list of candidates for people's commissioners, or
members of
the legislature. The single-party list was put to the
electorate,
which had no choice but to vote yes or no (by casting a
green or
red ballot).
In 1977, under pressure from the United States, the
International Monetary Fund (
IMF--see
Glossary), and other
outside
forces, Mobutu began to pay lip service to the notion of
democracy
for Zaire. Multiple candidacies were permitted, but within
the MPR
framework. The result was that the National Legislative
Council
served as a lightning rod for the population's resentment
of its
treatment by the regime. In 1982, for example, 310 members
of
parliament (one per 100,000 persons) were elected from
among 1,409
candidates presented by the MPR. But only sixty out of 310
members
were reelected.
The move toward multipartyism and democratization
initiated in
1990 did, indeed, result in the formation and, ultimately,
legal
recognition of numerous political parties and coalitions
(see
Political
Reform in the 1990s;
Opposition
since 1990
, this
ch.).
The logical consequence would be free multiparty
elections, and
initially hopes ran high for a transition leading up to
the
presidential and legislative elections due in early
December 1991.
But those elections did not take place, and Mobutu made
very clear
his intention to stay in power beyond his constitutional
mandate.
Thus, in the early 1990s, free electoral choice remained
an
unfulfilled dream in Zaire.
Data as of December 1993
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