From: barnhart@netcom.com (Aaron Barnhart)
Subject: IPS:ZAIRE: TSHISEKEDI TIPPED TO BECOME
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 92 01:22:18 GMT
Organization: Netcom
Reply-To: barnhart@netcom.com

Copyright Inter Press Service 1992, all rights reserved.  Permission to re-
print within 7 days of original date only with permission from 'newsdesk'.

Title: ZAIRE: TSHISEKEDI TIPPED TO BECOME TRANSITION PRIME MINISTER


kinshasa, aug 13 (ips) -- zaire's troubled national conference
for political reform wednesday entered a conclusive stage as the
country's 40 million people await the election of a transition
prime minister.

on monday the bureau of the national conference had
registered 17 candidates for the top post in the transition
governmnent but political observers here say the odds are
stsistently attempted to
split the opposition and break up the national conference by
offering the inducement of cabinet posts to opposition figures.
he suspended the conference in january, until international and
domestic pressure forced him to capitulate.

despite last week's near crisis, following the government's
refusal to accept the national conference's descison to change
the country's name to the congo and to remove all national
symbols of zaire under mobutu, the national conference has
refused to deviate from electing a transition prime minister,
and reducing mobutu's powers to a largely ceremonial role.

since last week, the zairean capital has been flooded with
streamers, banners and posters calling on the national
conference to vote for tshisekedi, who is popularly believed to
be the only leader capable of challenging the influence of
mobutu.

mobutu has ruled the central african nation for 27 years with
an iron fist amid allegations of widespread human rights abuse,
corruption and incompetence.


zaire: tshisekedi (2)

however, along with the public manifestations of support,
there has been an alarming undercurrent of intimidation aimed at
tshisekedi's rivals for the premiership.

lately, the ''palais du peuple'' in kinshasa, where the
conference has been taking place, has been flooded with
anonymous letters threatening to kill the families of some
conference participants and burn down their houses if tshisekedi
is not elected prime minister.

on tuesday, militants of udps raided the offices of the
unified lumumbiste party (palu). the party's leader, antoine
gizenga, heads the faction of the national conference supporting
the candidature of thomas kanza who appears to be the most
credible opposition to tshisekedi.

kanza, who has just returned to zaire after along spell of
exile in britain and the united states is also likely to have
the support of mobutu's former sole party, the popular movement
for the revolution (mpr), which has not fielded a candidate for
the election.

but kanza's detractors distrust his connection with president
mobutu and say that waging the struggle for democracy in zaire
from outside the country does not put him in the ranks of the
architects of change.

in fact the psychological pressure and the threats in the run
up to the election have been such that the mpr tuesday issued a
communique denouncing those who ''disprespect the opinions of
those who do not think like them.''

but with support for tshisekedi bordering on fanaticism,
political observers here believe an election victory by somebody
other than tshisekedi would be percieved as rigged.
(end/ips/lo/tvh/oa/92)

[note: this story received in about 10 iterations, of which this
was the last, and even it has transmission garble--AB]

-- 
Aaron (Barnhart@netcom.com) -- posting from Evanston, Illinois
Newsgroups: sanet.talk.politics,soc.culture.african