The Western press has a script for the Democratic Republic of Congo, and they never miss a cue. President Félix Tshisekedi hints at constitutional "reforms," and the headlines immediately scream "Power Grab" or "Dictator in the Making." It is a tired, lazy narrative that prioritizes the aesthetics of democracy over the mechanics of a functioning state.
Mainstream media obsesses over election dates while a country the size of Western Europe lacks a single paved road connecting its Atlantic coast to its eastern border. They fret over term limits while the M23 rebels and a dozen other militias operate as de facto governments in the Kivu provinces. Learn more on a related topic: this related article.
Here is the truth nobody wants to say: In the DRC, the obsession with "timely polls" is actually a distraction from the total absence of a sovereign state. Holding an election in a country without administrative control isn't democracy; it’s an expensive census of who hasn’t been killed yet.
The Sovereignty Myth
The international community treats the DRC like a country that just needs a little bit of "capacity building." This is a lie. The DRC is a collection of mining concessions and conflict zones held together by a flag and a seat at the UN. Further reporting by NBC News highlights similar views on the subject.
When Tshisekedi talks about changing the constitution, the "lazy consensus" assumes he wants to stay in power forever. Maybe he does. Most politicians do. But the real issue is that the current constitution—written in 2006 under heavy foreign tutelage—was designed to keep the central government weak. It was a document of pacification, not state-building.
It created a decentralized system that the country cannot afford and cannot manage. It mandated provinces that don't have the tax base to support their own governors. It created a legal framework that makes any meaningful reform a decade-long bureaucratic nightmare.
If you want to build a nation, you need a strong center. You need the ability to collect taxes, enforce laws, and move troops without asking permission from thirty different local warlords and their international backers. If a constitutional change is the price of creating a state that actually exists outside of Kinshasa, then the "term limit" debate is a secondary concern.
The High Cost of Cheap Elections
We spend hundreds of millions of dollars on Congolese elections. The 2023 cycle was a logistical catastrophe that cost more than the annual budgets of several government ministries.
Where does that money go? It goes to renting planes from Dubai to fly ballot boxes into jungle clearings. It goes to foreign consultants. It goes to "monitoring" missions that release reports three months too late to matter.
Imagine if that capital was deployed into the Inga Dam project or the National Office of Rural Roads. The West demands "transparency" while the Congolese people demand electricity. You cannot eat a ballot. You cannot drive a truck full of produce over a "fair and free" voting process.
The "People Also Ask" sections of the internet are filled with questions like, "Is the DRC safe for investment?" or "Will the elections be delayed?" These are the wrong questions. The right question is: "Does the DRC have the legal authority to protect an investment?"
Currently, the answer is no. Whether the election happens in 2028 or 2030 doesn't change the fact that the judiciary is a shambles and the army is a patchwork of integrated rebels. We are arguing about who gets to sit in the pilot's seat of a plane that has no engines.
Stability is Not a Dirty Word
There is a visceral reaction among Western intellectuals to the word "stability" because it sounds like "autocracy." But for a mother in Goma or a miner in Kolwezi, stability is the only metric that matters.
I have seen mining firms spend $50 million on private security because the state cannot provide a single police officer. I have seen NGOs build schools that are burned down three weeks later because there is no rule of law.
The 19th-century German sociologist Max Weber defined a state as the "monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force." The DRC does not have this. It has a competitive market of force.
- The UN (MONUSCO) has spent 25 years and $20 billion failing to protect civilians.
- The East African Community Regional Force (EACRF) came and went.
- SADC troops are now rotating in.
The only people who aren't allowed to exercise a monopoly on force, it seems, is the Congolese government itself. Every time the FARDC (the national army) tries to modernize or consolidate, the "human rights" lobby starts checking the calendar for the next election. They prefer a weak, democratic failure over a strong, potentially problematic success.
The Mineral Curse of "Good Governance"
The world wants Congo’s cobalt, copper, and coltan. They want it cheap, and they want it now to fuel the "green energy" transition.
The current constitutional mess is perfect for international mining giants. A weak central government means you can cut deals with local strongmen. It means "social responsibility" projects—a school here, a well there—can replace actual tax obligations.
A strong, reformed constitution might actually allow the DRC to renegotiate its lopsided contracts. It might allow the state to demand value-added processing within its borders.
When Tshisekedi mentions "revising" the constitution to better reflect "national realities," he is signaling that the 2006 framework is a straightjacket. It prevents the state from acting as a sovereign economic player.
The critics call this a "slide toward authoritarianism." I call it the first step toward economic decolonization. You cannot negotiate with Glencore or CMOC if your own capital is under constant threat of a "constitutional crisis" every five years.
The Brutal Reality of Term Limits
Let’s talk about the elephant in the room: term limits.
The Western obsession with two-term limits is a cultural export that doesn't fit the lifecycle of state-building in a post-conflict environment. It took decades to stabilize the Asian Tigers. It took centuries to build the European states.
If a leader is actually making progress—building roads, professionalizing the army, stabilizing the currency—why is the arbitrary limit of eight or ten years the most important factor?
The downside to my argument is obvious: the risk of a "President for Life" who loots the country. We saw it with Mobutu. We saw the stagnation of the Kabila years.
But the alternative—a revolving door of weak leaders who spend their entire first term fighting for survival and their entire second term preparing for exile—is arguably worse. It ensures that no long-term infrastructure project is ever finished. It ensures that civil servants never develop loyalty to the state, only to the current patron.
Stop Fixing the Election, Start Fixing the State
If the DRC is to survive the next decade without fracturing into five different countries, it must stop prioritizing the "poll" over the "polity."
The constitutional revision should not be viewed through the narrow lens of Tshisekedi’s career. It should be viewed as an attempt to fix a broken machine.
- Centralize the Treasury: Stop the leakage to provincial governors who operate like feudal lords.
- Professionalize the Judiciary: A constitution is just paper if a judge can be bought for the price of a used Land Cruiser.
- Reform the Military: Stop the "brassage" (integration) of rebels. Build a force that answers to one commander, not one ethnic group.
The international community needs to stop acting like a hall monitor and start acting like a partner. That means supporting structural reforms even if they don't look like a New England town hall meeting.
We are watching a country try to birth itself while the rest of the world complains about the noise. The "constitutional threat" isn't that Tshisekedi might stay. The threat is that the DRC remains a "territory" rather than a "nation."
If the constitution is the problem, rip it up. Build something that works for the Congo, not something that makes a diplomat in Brussels feel good about "democratic progress."
Stop asking when the next election is. Start asking when the state will arrive.
