Judith Suminwa Tuluka, Minister of Planning, is appointed Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to an official announcement made Monday on national television, a little more than three months after the December 20 elections won by outgoing President Félix Tshisekedi.
The first woman appointed as head of the DRC government, Ms. Suminwa Tuluka succeeds Jean-Michel Sama Lukonde, Prime Minister since February 2021, who resigned on February 21. Aged around fifty, with a master's degree in economics, she will have to implement the commitments of Félix Tshisekedi's second term, in a security context that remains as tense as ever.
90% of seats in the National Assembly
In power since January 2019, Félix Tshisekedi, 60, was largely re-elected on December 20 for a second five-year term, winning more than 73% of the votes in general elections described as a “
sham”
by the opposition.
The parties supporting him also won more than 90% of the seats in the National Assembly, which gives him complete freedom to pursue his policies. During the electoral campaign, the outgoing president called on his compatriots to give him a new mandate to
“consolidate the achievements”
of the first, notably by highlighting free primary education.
He promised to create jobs, diversify the economy and develop agriculture, continue his development plan for deep Congo, protect the purchasing power of households... Because while having an immensely rich subsoil in minerals, the DRC remains one of the poorest nations in the world, with two thirds of its population (around 100 million inhabitants) living below the poverty line.
The United Nations also estimates that around seven million people are
“internally displaced”
because of conflicts, particularly in the East, which has been plagued by armed violence for three decades. From the start of his first mandate, Félix Tshisekedi had promised to do everything to restore peace, which he did not manage to do. The situation has even deteriorated in North Kivu, prey for more than two years to a new rebellion of the
“M23”
(
“March 23 Movement”
), which, with the support of neighboring Rwanda, seized large swathes of the province.