Suited and booted: How Joseph Kabila went from president to rebel leader

**Suited and booted: How Joseph Kabila went from president to rebel leader**

Joseph Kabila was once a commander in the rebel alliance that brought his father to power in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1997. He later succeeded him as president and is now, at 55, a rebel leader again.

In an even more unusual turn, the man he has vowed to overthrow is the same man he handed power to after 18 years in office, and with whom he formed a coalition government after stepping down. One of the rebel groups he fought as president is also part of his new alliance.

His path reflects the constantly changing politics of DR Congo, where alliances are temporary and the threat of force never disappears.

When Kabila was appointed leader of the Front for the Refoundation of the Nation (FRN) earlier this month, it confirmed what many Congolese had long suspected: that the former president was working with the M23 rebels, who last year captured much of eastern DR Congo, including the main cities of Goma and Bukavu.

Even so, the confirmation caused shock across DR Congo, a huge country two-thirds the size of western Europe and rich in gold, diamonds and, more importantly, minerals used to make everything from mobile phones to batteries for electric vehicles.

For Kabila, the alliance may offer a path back to the power he lost.

For the M23 rebels, his involvement brings the experience and connections of a former head of state to a movement whose battlefield gains have not yet translated into broad national legitimacy.

But it remains far from certain that they can achieve their declared aim of removing President Félix Tshisekedi.

Policy analyst Henry-Pacifique Mayala told the BBC that Kabila had been left with few choices if he wanted to regain political influence.

"He actually was left with no other choice," he said.

With a death sentence hanging over him after being convicted in absentia of treason, and US sanctions imposed over his alleged backing of the M23, Kabila may have wanted guarantees that the partnership would benefit him, Mayala suggested.

"I'm not sure that he is making this huge leap in the dark without having received considerable assurance," Mayala said, adding that the M23's military power could give Kabila more leverage in any future talks with the Congolese government.

Kabila's role also raises the question of whether the conflict could spread beyond the east.

The M23's territorial advances have been concentrated in the country's eastern provinces, about 1,500km (1,000 miles) from the capital, Kinshasa.

Kabila's political networks could widen the rebellion's reach, but that does not necessarily mean it can extend its military campaign across the country.

It is also unclear how far Kabila's influence reaches nationally.

While in power, after being named following the mysterious assassination of his father Laurent in 2001, he was often regarded as something of an outsider in Kinshasa. He was much more comfortable speaking Swahili, the lingua franca of eastern DR Congo and east Africa, than the Lingala spoken in Kinshasa.

His father's rebel movement actually marched across the country to Kinshasa, also beginning in the east, over seven months before finally taking power in May 1996 and ousting long-time ruler Mobutu Sese Seko, who had ruled the country as if it were his personal property for more than 30 years.

There is little indication that Joseph Kabila's FRN would try to repeat that feat, but earlier this week he compared Tshisekedi to Mobutu.

"You have a tyrant who wants to impose and dictate what he thinks is right and not necessarily follow the constitution, which is the supreme law of the land," he told Conspiracy Trackers Great Lakes (CTGL), a research group that campaigns against disinformation in that part of Africa.

Kabila accused the government of using the death penalty, after ending the moratorium introduced during his own presidency, to frighten civilians, politicians and members of the military, as well as himself.

"This is personal," he said.

He cast his clash with Tshisekedi as a struggle against authoritarianism, citing Section 64 of the constitution, which urges citizens to resist anyone who seizes power or exercises it in violation of constitutional rules.

Tshisekedi is rumoured to be planning to alter the constitution so he can seek a third term, and the C64 coalition of opposition parties, named after that same section, is campaigning against such a move.

But in a sign that Kabila may not get his own way, the C64 coalition this week declined to support his rebellion, saying Congo's many security crises cannot be solved by military means alone. Instead, it said it would seek direct talks with both Tshisekedi and Kabila in pursuit of what it called a "genuine and inclusive national dialogue".

Richard Moncrieff, a Great Lakes analyst at the International Crisis Group, said Tshisekedi still has major advantages.

"Tshisekedi has strong American backing. He has a lot of money. And he generally controls the political system and, as far as we can see, the military system," Moncrieff said.

In his first public response to Kabila being named FRN leader, Tshisekedi was scathing: "In my view, it's simply proof that he has never loved this country, and even less its inhabitants," he said last week.

And yet Kabila is widely believed to have helped ensure that Tshisekedi, rather than Martin Fayulu, became president, even though Fayulu was the true winner of the 2018 election, according to leaked results shared by the Catholic Church, which had observers across the country.

Indeed, Corneille Nangaa, the former head of the electoral commission who announced Tshisekedi as the winner, has said as much.

Now one of Kabila's deputies in the FRN, he said Kabila and Tshisekedi had struck a political deal before the final results were announced.

"I can confirm that I helped draft the deal," Nangaa told France 24 in September 2023. "Tshisekedi is a liar. He knows there was an agreement and he knows what was contained in the deal."

Tshisekedi has insisted that he won the election legitimately.

After the disputed vote, Kabila and Tshisekedi entered a power-sharing deal that allowed Kabila's coalition to keep control of parliament even after Tshisekedi took office in January 2019.

That arrangement collapsed in December 2020, when Tshisekedi moved to end Kabila's parliamentary dominance and build his own majority. The former allies turned into rivals, and Kabila went into self-imposed exile in South Africa.

From exile, Kabila's criticism of Tshisekedi became increasingly sharp.

He returned to DR Congo in 2025 and appeared in rebel-held Goma. In September that year, a military court sentenced him to death in absentia on charges including treason and financing violence in eastern Congo.

At the time, he denied the allegations.

Another intriguing element in the announcement is Kabila's relationship with Rwanda's President Paul Kagame.

In the early years of his presidency, relations between DR Congo and Rwanda were tense, with Rwanda accusing its giant neighbour of failing to do enough to remove ethnic Hutu militias involved in the 1994 Rwandan genocide from its territory. Their presence in what is now DR Congo has been used to justify Rwanda's repeated military involvement in its much larger neighbour, dating back to its support for Laurent Kabila's rebellion.

The M23 was created in 2012, pledging to defend the rights of ethnic Tutsis and protect them from these militias, while also fighting the Congolese army, which was under Joseph Kabila's control.

Rwanda was accused from the outset of backing them. It has always denied the allegations, and still does despite overwhelming evidence.

Later, however, relations improved and Kabila's government worked with Rwanda against the Hutu militias.

Alex Adams, Africa programme director at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said Kabila's appointment as rebel leader could align his interests with those of Rwanda's president, even if their goals are different.

"Kabila wants to recover political influence nationally, while Kagame is primarily concerned with Rwanda's security and strategic position in eastern Congo. This is an alignment of convenience rather than a partnership built on deep trust," he said.

Policy analyst Mayala said Kabila's involvement could help Rwanda push back against claims that it was meddling in Congo's internal affairs.

"This is a former president. It's finally a Congolese rebellion," he said.

Even before Kabila was announced as the rebellion's leader, fighting was continuing despite a peace agreement overseen by Donald Trump last year.

Part of that deal saw the US sign an agreement to extract DR Congo's mineral wealth, and the US has since appeared to side with Tshisekedi by imposing sanctions on several Rwandan officials and bodies, accusing them of prolonging the violence.

Elections are due in 2028, but Tshisekedi has warned that fighting in the east could delay the vote.

Against that backdrop, Kabila has questioned whether elections alone can solve the country's political crisis.

"Does Congo need elections or a revolution?" he asked, arguing that lasting peace would require a fundamental overhaul of the country's executive and legislature.

International security analyst Ovigwe Eguegu says Kabila is betting on military force to regain political influence, while Tshisekedi appears to be trying to extend his time in office beyond what the constitution permits.

"It looks like the Congolese people are going to lose either way, because neither of these two sides present a credible economic transformation plan for both the eastern Congo and the entirety of the country," Eguegu said.