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http://www.africanews.org/central/congo-kinshasa/stories/19990202_feat4.html
Politics DRC Leaders React To New Law On Parties
February 2, 1999
Kinshasa, Congo (PANA) - The decision by Democratic Republic of Congo President
Laurent Kabila to lift the ban on political parties has sparked off some
reaction among the political class in the country.
Some political parties, like the Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS) of former Prime Minister Etienne Tshisekedi Wa Mulumba, rejected outright the conditions attached to the creation of parties as contained in a decree published Sunday.
"UDPS is not concerned by that decree," Joseph Kapita, a party official, said. "Political parties were suspended by a communique made by Mwenze Kongolo, then interior minister (current justice minister). We are therefore waiting for the lifting of this. At the UDPS, we do not recognize decree 194 and are calling on our supportes to be ready to keep on fighting so as to make the dictatorship loosen up."
The decree authorizing the resumption of political activity was taken in conformity with the promise made in that direction in November by Kabila during a tour which took him to Rome, Brussels and Paris.
An application for approval must be signed by at least 15 founder members residing in all the country's provinces, the decree says. No province can be represented by fewer than 10 or more than 15 people originating from it.
The decree makes it an obligation for all previously existing and dissolved political parties to seek a new approval from the interior minister.
It finally requires new parties to pay a registration fee of 30,000 Congolese francs (10,000 US dollars) upon submission of the application for approval.
The Front for Survival and Democracy has vowed to request next week the Supreme Court to nullify the decree.
The party's leader, Diomi Ndongala, a minister in the transitional period (1990 -1997), said the new provisions "impinge on the international convention on civil and political rights."
Kabila "did not bring answers to the pertinent criticisms raised by the text in its draft form," he said.
Ezulua Monzemba, national co-president of the Party of National Unity, created during the years of struggle for Independence, added that the decree "only concerns new parties to be created."
Dissolved along with other parties after Mobutu Sese Seko's military coup on 24 November 1965, the party resumed its activities in 1990 with the restoration of political pluralism.
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