Yesterday, in a humiliating event veteran politician Vital Kamerhe tendered his resignation as speaker of parliament of DRC.
On the surface, it looked like an internal affair, until you dig deeper, and you find the fingerprints of Félix Tshisekedi all over it. The last move to clearly show that Kinshasa is not interested in a union of the entirety of its territory.
For years, Tshisekedi has thrived on sowing mistrust between communities, portraying some as loyal and others as suspect. Instead of building bridges, he has been burning them. Instead of strengthening institutions, he weakens them. The consequences of this dangerous politics, as we argued before, is a time bomb and will be lethal.
By targeting leaders from the east, he is dismantling the very fabric of national cohesion and dragging Congo further into the abyss of perpetual conflict.
Asked whether he had anything to do with Kamerhe’s resignation, yesterday in New York, Tshisekedi brushed it off as a “parliamentary affair.” but truth be told, If Kamerhe was safe, there would be no witch-hunt against him in the first place.
If the axing of Kamerhe was truly internal, why has the UDPS, Tshisekedi’s own party, been breathing down Kamerhe’s neck for months? Fraudulent charges of money laundering, pressure from all corners, constant undermining, none of this happens without the nod of Tshisekedi. His denial is not just dishonest, it is a mockery and a spit in the face of the fallen Kamerhe.
Now Kamerhe joins the list of those who served Tshisekedi only to be discarded like waste. His belongings will be preyed upon, his family persecuted, his name dragged through the mud. That is the price of trusting a pathetic liar, a man incapable of loyalty, a ruler driven by nothing except his own survival. Kamerhe, once paraded as a partner, is now treated as a criminal. Tomorrow, it will be someone else.
But this purge goes beyond personal betrayal. It is a blow against millions of Congolese who saw in Kamerhe at least a bridge, a face of balance between east and west. With his removal, the message is clear: the east will never be trusted, no matter what. You cannot govern a nation by constantly alienating half of it. You cannot heal a wounded country by deepening the scars.
Tshisekedi imagines that by eliminating rivals he will secure his power. In truth, he is digging his own grave. Every betrayal weakens him. Every purge divides Congo further. Every lie eats away at his legitimacy.