Congo Opposition Rejects Both Armed Rule and a Third-Term Power Grab
The Democratic Republic of Congo’s main opposition coalition has rejected a choice designed to trap the country between two forms of power without consent: a rebellion led by former president Joseph Kabila and constitutional changes that could extend President Félix Tshisekedi’s rule.
After a two-day meeting in Rome that ended Tuesday, October 27, the Coalition Article 64, or C64, said there is no military solution to Congo’s crisis. It called for an inclusive national dialogue involving all parties and announced plans to meet Tshisekedi and Kabila separately. The coalition’s message was blunt: power should come neither through force nor through rewriting the rules for an incumbent.
The declaration matters because Kabila’s return to frontline politics has fractured the opposition’s terrain. On October 12, the former president took control of a new political-military alliance called the Front for the Refoundation of the Nation, or FRN. The formation absorbed the Rwanda-backed AFC/M23 rebellion, which controls large parts of eastern Congo. Its leaders have said they are prepared to use force.
C64 refused to follow Kabila into that project. The coalition brings together five opposition leaders: Martin Fayulu, Moïse Katumbi, Delly Sesanga, Matata Ponyo Mapon and Jean-Marc Kabund. Their joint statement was the first since Kabila formally aligned himself with the armed movement. It marked a line between political resistance to Tshisekedi and military rebellion against the state.
At the same time, C64 renewed its opposition to proposals that could allow Tshisekedi to seek a third term after his current mandate ends in 2028. Congo’s Constitution limits presidents to two five-year terms. Parliament approved a bill in June that opened a route toward constitutional changes by referendum, triggering protests and accusations that the government wants to dismantle the term limit.
This is not an abstract institutional quarrel. Police broke up C64 demonstrations in June and September. The coalition said Prince Epenge, an ally of Fayulu, was detained at Kinshasa’s airport on Sunday and prevented from traveling to Rome. On Tuesday it demanded the release of detained opposition figures and defended public freedoms alongside territorial integrity.
That combination gives the initiative its political weight. C64 is trying to deny both the government and the rebellion an alibi. Tshisekedi cannot claim that opposing Kabila requires silence about a third-term maneuver. Kabila cannot claim that rejecting constitutional manipulation requires accepting a gun-backed transfer of power. The coalition is attempting to restore a civilian path between those poles.
The path remains narrow. Tshisekedi announced a national dialogue in August, but he excluded armed groups and actors he accused of serving foreign powers. C64 wants talks broad enough to include every party to the conflict, including armed movements. Its leaders say they will approach the president and his predecessor to seek a ‘Congolese solution’ before taking their case to international partners.
That proposal carries risks. Negotiating with an armed coalition can reward territorial conquest. Excluding it, however, can leave the battlefield as the only place where terms are set. The existing Qatar-mediated process with AFC/M23 has already struggled to produce a durable ceasefire. Kabila’s ascent over the rebellion makes the chain of command more political, but not necessarily more accountable.
Congo’s civilians pay for every failed strategy. Decades of fighting in the east have displaced millions, hollowed out public institutions and opened mineral-rich territory to competing armed networks. An Ebola outbreak has added another national emergency. The country cannot absorb an elite contest that treats the Constitution, the army and civilian survival as disposable instruments.
C64 has not produced a peace agreement. It has produced something more limited but still important: a refusal to let the opposition be absorbed by either presidential permanence or armed insurgency. Whether Tshisekedi and Kabila accept separate meetings will show whether dialogue is more than a slogan—and whether Congo’s political class can make room for consent before the battlefield closes it.
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