Former Raïs Joseph Kabila's speech: flurry of clumsy reactions from the Tshisekedi camp

Former Democratic Republic of Congo President Joseph Kabila Kabange's address has drawn a string of reactions from across the Congolese political class.

Several opposition figures openly and unreservedly welcomed his diagnosis, which they consider accurate and true to realities on the ground. They believe the country is badly governed, that dictatorship is taking root and that the danger facing the DRC is imminent.

On the other side, figures from Félix Tshisekedi's camp reacted volubly to the speech, mostly with insults, outbursts, accusations, slander, blackmail and defamation, without ever challenging the former president on the facts he raised in his address on Friday 9 October 2026.

The response that has drawn the most attention is that of former vice-president Jean-Pierre Bemba, a one-time inmate of the International Criminal Court's detention centre in The Hague, where he faced charges of crimes against humanity. Mr Bemba launched a personal attack on the former president, couched in street language and marked by astonishing vulgarity.

It must be stressed that the former warlord has always harboured a deep hatred of Mr Kabila, who defeated him in the 2006 election, a result he contested violently, leaving several people dead in Kinshasa. Mr Bemba has also never hidden his hostility towards Swahili-speaking people from the east of the country.

During the campaign for the 2006 presidential run-off, he told a crowd in Kinshasa, in Lingala: "BATU WANA NA MUNOKO NABANGO", meaning "those people and their language", a reference to Swahili speakers.

Perhaps most striking in this wave of reactions is the sight of former allies of Mr Kabila, now members of the political camp of his successor, Mr Tshisekedi, disowning the efforts of their former boss in order to curry favour with the current president.

Figures such as Julien Paluku, who served as governor of North Kivu for more than 14 years, have hit out hard at Mr Kabila, accusing him of treason. Yet Mr Paluku is known for his closeness to the FDLR, a group of former Rwandan génocidaires, and for leading a Mai-Mai group that has since been absorbed into the Wazalendo militias.

Augustin Kabuya, secretary-general of the ruling UDPS party, went as far as threatening the former president with death. It is worth recalling that the Kinshasa regime has already sentenced Mr Kabila to death in a political trial held in his absence.