{"id":31485,"date":"2016-12-31T08:34:47","date_gmt":"2016-12-31T08:34:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/kabila-to-step-down-after-elections-in-new-deal\/"},"modified":"2016-12-31T08:34:42","modified_gmt":"2016-12-31T08:34:42","slug":"kabila-to-step-down-after-elections-in-new-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/kabila-to-step-down-after-elections-in-new-deal\/","title":{"rendered":"Kabila to step down after elections in new deal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>{Agreement reached by Congolese political parties aims to have transitional government in place by March next year.}<\/p>\n<p>Joseph Kabila will step down as president of the Democratic Republic of Congo after elections held before the end of 2017, under a draft agreement reached by political parties, according to a lead mediator from the Catholic Church.<\/p>\n<p>Under the deal, reached on Friday but not yet signed, Kabila will be unable to change the constitution to extend his mandate and run for a third term, said Marcel Utembi, president of the Catholic Bishops&#8217; Conference in the Congo.<\/p>\n<p>A transitional government will be put in place by March next year, said Al Jazeera&#8217;s Fahmida Miller, reporting from neighbouring Kenya.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;During the time of the transitional government, they will be looking at appointing a prime minister from the opposition. That was vital for the opposition because it needed a bigger stake in the government,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p>She said politicians in exile may also be allowed to return without a fear of prosecution.<\/p>\n<p>However, &#8220;there seems to be a number of questions around opposition politicians within DRC who have been arrested. They won&#8217;t necessarily be freed anytime soon,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;What this agreement is talking about is a sort of commission to be set up that would look at these political prisoners case-by-case and determine their fate.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>If the deal is finalised, it will be Congo&#8217;s first peaceful transfer of power since independence in 1960.<\/p>\n<p>Kabila&#8217;s two-term mandate ended on December 19, but authorities have effectively extended it until 2018.<\/p>\n<p>His actions led to demonstrations, with security forces killing about 40 people just last week alone.<\/p>\n<p>Western and African powers feared the failure to secure a peaceful transition of power could lead to a repeat of conflicts seen between 1996 and 2003 in eastern Congo in which millions died, mostly from starvation and disease.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-17369 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/fa9755929d8f43a9acfab8f5279deda8_18.jpg\" alt=\"Kabila&#039;s refusal to step aside sparked demonstrations \" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{Agreement reached by Congolese political parties aims to have transitional government in place by March next year.} Joseph Kabila will step down as president of the Democratic Republic of Congo after elections held before the end of 2017, under a draft agreement reached by political parties, according to a lead mediator from the Catholic Church. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[99],"byline":[2474],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-31485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-48","tag-greatlakesnews","byline-al-jazeera"],"bylines":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31485\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31485"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=31485"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=31485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}