National Dialogue in the DRC: Between the Need for Consensus and the Risk of Centralization

Stakes and dynamics surrounding the ordinance of 13 September 2026

Introduction

The signing, on 13 September 2026, by President Félix-Antoine Tshisekedi, of the ordinance establishing the Preliminary Organizing Committee of the National Dialogue for Peace, Cohesion and the Refounding of the State opens a new sequence in Congolese political life.

It should be clarified from the outset what this ordinance actually does: it does not yet convene the National Dialogue proceedings themselves. It sets up the mechanism tasked with preparing the future Preparatory Commission and launching the first consultations the process requires. This must notably rely on consultations in the 26 provinces before the national proceedings are held.

This legal nuance takes nothing away from the political importance of the step taken. In the current context of deep mistrust between actors, the way a dialogue is prepared can be almost as decisive as its content.

The presidential initiative thus comes in an environment marked at once by the security emergency in the East, internal political fractures, concerns over the country’s institutional future, strong distrust between those in power and the opposition, and a deep social crisis. This crisis shows itself notably through difficulties accessing drinking water and electricity, delays or irregularities in the payment of public salaries and wages, weak purchasing power, unemployment and underemployment, difficulties accessing healthcare and education, and the deterioration of road, school, health and other essential infrastructure. On top of these difficulties come the economic and human consequences of insecurity in several regions of the country.

The fundamental question therefore becomes: will the mechanism put in place gradually build the trust needed for a genuine national dialogue, or does it risk reproducing, from its very preparatory phase, the same relations of mistrust that made the dialogue necessary in the first place?

1. An institutional architecture that raises a question of neutrality

The first issue concerns the architecture of the Preliminary Organizing Committee.

It is placed under the direct authority of the President of the Republic, and its members are appointed within that authority. A technical secretariat made up of eleven experts is also attached to the Committee.

From an institutional standpoint, this arrangement is understandable: the Head of State is the one initiating the process and constitutionally bears a particular responsibility for safeguarding national cohesion. It is therefore logical that he should have an administrative mechanism to launch the preparatory work.

But a political difficulty appears immediately.

A dialogue meant to bring together actors who do not trust one another must, from its preparatory phase onward, inspire enough confidence for everyone to agree to take part.

The Committee’s direct attachment to the Presidency does not necessarily mean the future Dialogue will be controlled by those in power. It does, however, create a perception of centralization that the opposition and part of civil society will not fail to exploit.

The question is therefore not only one of the Committee’s legal authority. It is also one of the perception of its impartiality.

In such a sensitive political process, legitimacy is not built solely through compliance with legal texts. It is also built through the trust that the various actors place in the institutions tasked with preparing the compromise.

2. The real issue is not the ambiguity, but who will set the rules of the game

Another question concerns the elements that have not yet been definitively settled.

The announced mechanism provides for several steps before the national proceedings are held. The consultations are meant, among other things, to gather contributions from the different components of society and to prepare the conditions for the Dialogue.

It would therefore be excessive to fault the ordinance for not fixing every detail of the Dialogue right away. That is precisely the purpose of the preparatory phase.

The real issue lies elsewhere: who will take part in defining the rules of the game, and what guarantees will be offered to the different protagonists so that they regard those rules as legitimate?

Representation criteria, the selection of participants, the setting of the agenda, the role of society’s various components, mechanisms for monitoring commitments, and financial transparency are all topics that will need to be clarified.

A credible dialogue cannot only be inclusive in its final composition. It must also be inclusive in the making of its own rules.

3. Confidentiality: a technical necessity, or a risk of opacity?

The obligation of confidentiality and discretion imposed on those involved in the preparatory work also calls for reflection.

Confidentiality is not, in itself, incompatible with a dialogue process. In any serious negotiation, some discussions must be able to take place behind closed doors. Actors sometimes need to be able to explore compromises without every one of their proposals being immediately turned into a public statement.

But the confidentiality of exchanges should not become the opacity of the process.

The population and the various stakeholders must be able to know under what rules the consultations are conducted, what criteria govern the selection of participants, what the main conclusions of the consultations are, and how they influence the rest of the process.

Trust therefore requires a clear distinction between two notions: the confidentiality of certain discussions, and the transparency of the rules that frame those discussions.

The former can be necessary for negotiation. The latter is indispensable for legitimacy.

4. “Refounding the State”: a notion that calls for clarification

The notion of “refounding the State,” associated with the Dialogue, is another point of attention.

In itself, this expression does not necessarily mean amending the Constitution or the institutions. It can refer to a broader reflection on governance, security, justice, decentralization, national cohesion, or the functioning of the State.

But words take on a particular meaning in a given political context.

The DRC is currently going through a period of strong questioning around its constitutional order and the future of its institutions. Part of the opposition already draws a link between the Dialogue, the constitutional question, and the possibility of an extension of presidential power.

This reading belongs to the actors who put it forward and should not be confused with the legal content of the ordinance itself.

It nonetheless constitutes a real political problem, insofar as when trust is low, ambiguity feeds suspicion.

It would therefore be in the interest of those in power to clearly state the constitutional limits of the Dialogue and to reassure that the search for a national Pact is not a roundabout way of changing the fundamental rules of the political game.

5. An opposition that rejects the framework rather than negotiating its guarantees

The opposition’s reaction was predictable given the context.

In a statement made public on 13 September 2026, the “Sauvons la RDC” movement, close to former president Joseph Kabila, rejected the arrangement, denouncing in particular the discretionary power granted to the Head of State in organizing the process.

Speaking on RFI on 14 September 2026, Ferdinand Kambere, deputy permanent secretary of the PPRD, likewise rejected the proposed mechanism, while Martin Fayulu gave his view the same day on Top Congo FM, firmly affirming his rejection of the presidential arrangement and calling for a popular mobilization on 15 September 2026.

This reaction reveals a deeper problem.

The Congolese opposition faces a classic dilemma: taking part in a process whose rules it disputes can be read as an endorsement of those rules; refusing to take part, on the other hand, can deprive it of the ability to change them from within.

Outright rejection is therefore not necessarily the most effective strategy.

It might be more useful for the opposition to turn its rejection in principle into a precise list of guarantees:

• transparency criteria;
• effective participation of the main political and social components;
• an independent mechanism for verifying the consultations;
• public financing rules;
• transparency of the preparatory work;
• a mechanism for monitoring commitments;
• explicit guarantees regarding respect for the constitutional order.

In other words, moving from rejecting the dialogue to negotiating its conditions could allow the opposition to regain a capacity for influence.

6. Religious confessions: a possible role in restoring trust

Religious confessions, particularly CENCO and the ECC, occupy a singular place in this sequence.

President Tshisekedi had met with religious leaders on 17 July 2026, as part of efforts toward an inclusive national dialogue. In the days that followed, CENCO and the ECC began consultations with various political actors.

This involvement recalls the role religious institutions have already played in several major episodes of Congolese political life.

But their future role will need to be defined with care.

Religious confessions cannot be seen as the auxiliaries of any particular side. Their added value lies precisely in their capacity to offer a space of trust to actors who no longer trust one another.

Their contribution could notably consist in facilitating agreement on the Dialogue’s rules, encouraging the participation of the different components, and recalling that the process’s primary purpose must remain peace, national cohesion, and the improvement of people’s living conditions.

Neutrality does not mean the absence of a position; it means the capacity to uphold the same principles before all protagonists.

7. The international factor: accompanying without substituting

The Congolese National Dialogue is not unfolding in an exclusively national environment.

The security crisis in the East is already embedded in several regional and international processes. The internal political process must therefore be articulated with the diplomatic initiatives aimed at ending the war and stabilizing the region.

This articulation, however, raises a delicate question.

International partners can contribute to mediation, support, and the search for guarantees. They cannot substitute themselves for Congolese actors in defining a national compromise.

The DRC must avoid two excesses: an institutional nationalism that would refuse all outside mediation, and an externalization of the political settlement that would give international partners a disproportionate role in defining the country’s future.

The African Union, the United Nations, Western partners, and regional mediators can accompany the process. But the final legitimacy of the national Pact must come from the Congolese themselves.

8. What Congolese political history should teach us

The DRC’s recent history offers several useful lessons.

The Sovereign National Conference of the early 1990s showed the importance of a body enjoying legitimacy broad enough to arbitrate between deeply antagonistic political forces. The role played by Archbishop Laurent Monsengwo during that period remains, in this respect, an important precedent.

Twenty-five years later, the Saint Sylvester Agreement likewise illustrated the need for mediation capable of bringing together positions that ordinary political mechanisms could no longer reconcile. CENCO’s involvement was then decisive in reaching a compromise.

These precedents obviously do not provide a model to be mechanically reproduced. They do, however, point to a constant in Congolese political life: when political actors no longer trust each other sufficiently, the mediator or institution tasked with organizing the compromise must hold a legitimacy superior to the parties’ immediate interests.

This is probably one of the main lessons the current preparatory phase should take on board.

9. The risk of political “transhumance”

Congolese political dialogues have also been marked by another phenomenon: the transformation of negotiation spaces into places for reshuffling alliances.

The ability of those in power to individually win over certain opposition officials or cadres is nothing new.

Political “transhumance” can unblock certain situations in the short term. But it carries a considerable democratic cost when individuals become the representatives of a party or platform without holding a genuine mandate from their base.

The problem is therefore not simply a moral one; it is also institutional. An agreement signed by representatives who no longer hold legitimacy among those they claim to represent becomes extremely fragile.

Representativeness should thus be considered a central question for the future Dialogue: who represents whom? Under what mandate? With what prior consultation of their base? And under what accountability mechanisms?

Without answers to these questions, the Dialogue risks producing signatures without producing lasting consensus.

10. And what about the ordinary citizen in all this?

This is probably the most important question.

Debates over institutions, the Constitution, mandates, and political balances naturally occupy center stage. Yet the majority of the Congolese population lives a different reality: insufficient purchasing power, unemployment, difficulty accessing public services, insecurity, precarious conditions for civil servants and teachers, and difficulty accessing healthcare and education.

Major political forums also come at a cost. They mobilize significant financial, logistical, and human resources.

The question, then, is not whether to invest in dialogue at all. Peace and stability have a price, and dialogue can be a necessary investment.

But this investment will only be politically and morally acceptable if the Dialogue’s outcomes also address the population’s concrete concerns.

It would be paradoxical for a process presented as aiming to restore national cohesion to leave out, precisely, those in whose name that cohesion is being sought.

The ordinary citizen should not be called upon only as a protester, a voter, a political supporter, or a figure in the consultations. They must become a genuine recipient of the Dialogue’s outcomes.

11. The conditions for a genuine “Republican Pact”

At this stage, the debate should not be reduced to an opposition between those “for” the Dialogue and those “against” it.

The real question is one of its conditions of credibility.

A national dialogue capable of producing a genuine Republican Pact should, at a minimum, rest on five guarantees.

1. Inclusiveness: all political and social forces holding genuine legitimacy must be able to take part, within the limits related to armed violence and international crimes.
2. Transparency: representation rules, selection criteria, the general timeline, financing mechanisms, and monitoring arrangements must be made known.
3. Neutrality: the institution preparing the compromise must be sufficiently balanced that neither those in power nor the opposition can reasonably regard the process as belonging to them.
4. Respect for constitutional order: the search for a refounding of the State should not be synonymous with an opportunistic change to the Republic’s fundamental rules. Any institutional reform must follow the procedures set out in the Constitution.
5. A genuine social dimension: the Dialogue should not only produce a new balance among political leaders. It should produce measurable commitments on security, governance, justice, public services, the fight against corruption, youth employment, and the improvement of living conditions.

Conclusion: the real issue is trust

The ordinance of 13 September 2026 is an important step in setting up the National Dialogue process. It does not, however, yet make it possible to determine whether this process will lead to a genuine national consensus.

Everything will depend on what follows.

Those in power today bear a particular responsibility: to turn the institutional authority they hold into a capacity for bringing people together, rather than a mere capacity for organizing.

The opposition, for its part, will have to choose between systematically rejecting the process and winning guarantees that allow it to genuinely change the rules.

Religious confessions and other components of civil society can help reduce mistrust, provided they preserve their independence.

The international community can accompany the process, without substituting itself for the Congolese people.

But beyond all these actors, one question remains: what place will actually be given to the citizen?

The DRC does not only need a new political forum. It needs a process capable of restoring trust in institutions, responding to the security crisis, and putting social concerns back at the center of public action.

The real issue, then, is not who will win the Dialogue.

It is whether the Dialogue will allow Congolese people to reclaim their own national debate.

Only on that condition can “refounding the State” move beyond a political formula to become a genuine republican project.

Victor Kashosi
Consultant in Organizational Development and Governance
kashosivictor@gmail.com
+243 818 137 972