The return of former Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) President Joseph Kabila to the strife-torn country has already started far-reaching political and geopolitical implications.
Kabila returned to the DRC on 18 April, arriving via Rwanda in the strategic eastern city of Goma, which has become the de facto headquarters of the AFC/M23 rebel movement since they captured it on 27 January, 2025.
Though he has not spoken, the ambiguity is vintage Kabila—a man who has always thrived in the shadows of uncertainty.
This re-emergence, after a year in self-imposed exile, could reshape the DRC’s political and geopolitical landscape—or deepen its fractures. Most immediately, it sent the government in Kinshasa into a repressive spiral, with it suspending Kabila’s political party, the People’s Party for Reconstruction and Democracy (PPRD), and ordering the seizure of his assets. It accused Kabila of high treason and alleging his party’s complicity with the M23 rebel group.
Kabila, who was in office from 2001 to early 2019, had been in self-imposed exile since leaving the DRC in December 2023, after handing over power to President Félix Tshisekedi in January 2019, in the country’s first peaceful transfer of power. His exile was spent mostly in South Africa, where he was reportedly enrolled at the University of Johannesburg, with diplomatic forays to Namibia and Zimbabwe. Yet his shadow lingered, as his PPRD and Front Commun pour le Congo (FCC) quietly stoked influence back home.
Kabila’s intentions, will be confirmed when he makes a public statement, but it is perhaps not surprising he would be in Goma. AFC/M23 leader Corneille Nangaa was a Kabila loyalist and headed the DRC’s Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI), which, in 2018, controversially allegedly helped a little-fancied Felix Tshisekedi win the election.
Kabila, barred from running again, endorsed Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, a stalwart from his PPRD and FCC coalition. Tshisekedi, leader of the Union pour la Démocratie et le Progrès Social (UDPS), and Martin Fayulu, backed by the Lamuka coalition, were the main opposition candidates.
A Secret Deal with Tshisekedi?
Fayulu was the clear favourite, and leaks from CENI and the Catholic Bishops’ Conference (CENCO) observer mission showed Fayulu leading with 59.8%, Tshisekedi with 18.7%, and Shadary with 17.6% as the counting was nearing completion. However, in a dramatic turn of events, CENI declared Tshisekedi the winner with 38.57% of the vote, followed by Fayulu with 34.83%, and Shadary with 23.84%.
Analysts noted irregularities, such as high voter turnout in Kabila strongholds and improbable vote distributions, suggesting manipulation at the tabulation stage.
Fayulu, his supporters, and many other sources maintain to this day that Kabila struck a secret deal with Tshisekedi to secure his victory in exchange for immunity and influence post-tenure.
This was allegedly because Kabila feared Shadary’s loss would leave him vulnerable to prosecution, given his unpopularity and the opposition’s strength at the time. This view is not universal. Rigging the vote for Tshisekedi, a long-time rival, seems less logical unless Kabila believed Tshisekedi was more controllable, which proved overly optimistic.
Tshisekedi began distancing himself from Kabila, dissolving the FCC coalition in December 2020 and appointing his own prime minister, Jean-Michel Sama Lukonde, in 2021. This suggests Tshisekedi was not a mere puppet, undermining claims of a long-term deal. Tshisekedi’s government investigated Kabila-era corruption, though no charges were filed against Kabila himself. Two men who hold the secret, Nangaa and Kabila, are now both in Goma. The other, Tshisekedi, is in Kinshasa.
Kabila’s Rise to Power
Kabila (Junior) succeeded his father, Laurent-Désiré Kabila, after the latter was assassinated in January 2001. Kabila Senior was born in Jadotville (now Likasi), in Katanga Province, in 1939. He was a member of the Luba community, which is prominent in Katanga. With his father mobile and on the run as he fought against the corrupt dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, Joseph Kabila was born in South Kivu (now mostly under M23 control) but spent much of his early life in exile with his father in Tanzania and Uganda.
He was involved in the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire (AFDL), led by his father, during the First Congo War (1996–1997), which overthrew Mobutu and was supported directly by a coalition of African countries in which Rwanda was the most prominent.
After the AFDL’s victory in May 1997, when Laurent Kabila became president, Kabila Junior was appointed to the Congolese armed forces. By 1998, he was promoted to Major General and later became the Chief of Staff of the Congolese Armed Forces during the Second Congo War (1998–2003), though his rapid rise was attributed to his father’s influence rather than his military prowess.
Kabila’s return meant he could only do one of three things: ally with the rebels, set out an independent stall as a third force and try to play mediator, or reconcile with Tshisekedi. Reconciliation seemed too remote given that Tshisekedi had already accused Kabila of supporting the M23 rebels, and mediation was removed from the table by his government’s angry response to his arrival in Goma.
M23’s Makeover
It is not clear that those accusations have harmed Kabila’s political cards. They have, however, helped the M23, which has been trying to re-engineer itself into a broader DRC movement, and not primarily a Congolese Tutsi grievance and rights rebel organisation.
While he was outside the DRC, Kabila maintained a low profile but remained politically active behind the scenes. In January 2025, he was in Addis Ababa, meeting popular opposition leaders like Moïse Katumbi and Claudel Lubaya, and in Nairobi, conferring with allies from his People’s Party for Reconstruction and Democracy (PPRD) and representatives from the Conférence Épiscopale Nationale du Congo (Cenco-ECC). Kabila has clearly been working on some structure for a big-tent movement.
The Alliance Fleuve Congo (AFC), which includes the M23 rebel group and commonly referred to as AFC/M23, has also been spreading its wings. While M23, in the early stages, consistently stated that they are fighting to protect Congolese Tutsi, they broadened this as part of the AFC to include the Banyamulenge as South Kivu came under their control.
They accused the Congolese government, under President Tshisekedi, of fostering hate speech, ethnic profiling, and violence against these communities, portraying them as “foreigners” or “Rwandan proxies” due to their historical and ethnic cultural ties to Rwanda. They cited incidents of arrests, incommunicado detentions, and sham trials of Banyamulenge and Tutsi individuals accused of supporting M23 or spying for Rwanda.
Swahili People’s “Liberation”
The AFC/M23 then began including the Hema in Ituri province in its messaging, saying they face targeted attacks by groups like the CODECO militia, which they argue the Congolese government deliberately fails to prevent. They frame these attacks as part of a broader pattern of violence against minority groups perceived as non-native, aligning the Hema’s plight with that of the Tutsi and Banyamulenge.
As it consolidated its footprint, M23 now says that Swahili-speaking Rwandophone communities, often labelled as “Banyarwanda,” are persecuted. They argue that these groups are denied citizenship rights, face hate speech, and are targeted by “indigenous” government-allied militias like the Mai-Mai, who view them as invaders. The rebels assert that the government indirectly supports these attacks by collaborating with militias like the FDLR (Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda), comprised of elements who carried out the Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda in 1994.
Swahili is one of the four national languages in the DRC, alongside Lingala, Kikongo, and Tshiluba. Swahili-speaking regions cover roughly the eastern third of the DRC, including North Kivu, South Kivu, Ituri, Maniema, Haut-Katanga, Lualaba, Tanganyika, and Haut-Lomami. Swahili serves as a lingua franca in these areas, used for trade, administration, and inter-ethnic communication. It is also dominant in major cities like Goma, Bukavu, Bunia, Kindu, Lubumbashi, Kolwezi, and Kalemie.
Along with its posture as a Swahiliphone organisation, AFC/M23 now projects its military actions and conquests as “liberation,” i.e., it is a nationalist movement.
Therefore, even just having Kabila in Goma, their unofficial capital, doing nothing but sipping wine on the balcony of the Serena Hotel, is good enough for AFC/M23’s goal of broadcasting their evolution.
Geopolitical Storm Brewing
Potentially, Kabila could also find himself in the eye of a geopolitical storm. Kabila’s presidency was marked by significant Chinese investment in the DRC’s mining sector.
His return might signal a momentum for a reassertion of pro-China policies and clash with the DRC government’s vigorous pursuit of a minerals-for-security deal with the USA to counter AFC/M23. China dominates 75–80% of the DRC’s mining sector .
Kabila’s record could therefore bolster AFC leader Nangaa’s position, who stated in an interview with the Associated Press on 25 March 2025, that neither international sanctions nor the DRC’s proposed minerals deal with the US would stop their fighting. The rebels see Tshisekedi’s pursuit of a minerals-for-security deal as a desperate move to bolster his regime amid military failures against their advances.
But it could also complicate things. Erik Prince, the founder of the U.S. private military company Blackwater and ally of U.S. President Donald Trump, reached an agreement with the DRC in late 2024, finalised before the M23 rebel offensive in January 2025, to help secure and monetise the country’s vast mineral wealth.
This focuses on improving tax collection and reducing cross-border smuggling in the DRC’s mining sector, particularly in the copper- and cobalt-rich Katanga province. It is understood that Prince, who currently runs Reflex Responses, a private security company with an 800-man foreign mercenary force based in the United Arab Emirates, has no plans to deploy security contractors to active conflict zones, such as the M23-controlled eastern provinces of North Kivu or South Kivu.
Prince’s security agreement targets stable mining areas like Katanga (Kabila’s home region), not M23-controlled zones. While there is no definitive evidence that Prince was a direct associate of Kabila during his presidency, Prince’s business interests in the DRC, particularly through his company Frontier Services Group (FSG), overlapped with Kabila’s tenure.
Kabila’s return could throw a spanner in these elaborate schemes, and he might be seen as a spoiler by an array of international players in the DRC’s vast mineral enterprise or as a patriotic force.
Can Kabila Unify?
Kabila, however, will have to convince many of his goodwill and capacity to contribute to peace. His controversial past, including allegations of corruption and mismanagement during his presidency, may undermine his ability to act as a unifying figure.
However, there is a growing nostalgia and revision of his legacy. He is credited with ending the Second Congo War (1998–2003) via the 2003 Pretoria Accord and overseeing the DRC’s first democratic elections in 2006, which he won.
Supporters argue he unified a divided country and improved security in most regions, except the east. These achievements resonate in Swahili regions like Katanga and Maniema, where stability was valued.
His mining reforms, including contracts with Chinese firms, boosted Katanga’s economy, earning loyalty among local elites and workers, despite widespread corruption allegations.
Allegations of electoral fraud in 2006 and 2011, and that rumoured deal with Tshisekedi to rig the 2018 vote against Martin Fayulu, still weigh down his reputation, especially in pro-Fayulu areas like Kinshasa, so he might not have much purchase there.
Kabila’s Luba heritage and Katanga origins make him a regional icon in Haut-Katanga and Lualaba, where ethnic loyalty and mining wealth sustain support. His father’s legacy as a rebel leader also resonates in eastern DRC, particularly among some Swahili-speaking communities.
No Sentimental Homecoming
There are risks too. The eastern conflict has deepened ethnic hostility, particularly towards Congolese Tutsis. Kabila’s return, especially if it became too linked to M23, could inflame these divisions, risking further violence or communal conflict. Rumours of ethnic groups arming themselves and the impending withdrawal of Kinshasa’s regional allies like the Southern African Development Community (SADC) force in the DRC (SAMIDRC) heighten the risk of institutional collapse.
The DRC teeters on the brink.
One thing is certain: this is no sentimental homecoming. It is a power play in a high-stakes game, in a country where such games often end in blood. Kabila may hope to reclaim relevance—or redemption—but he won’t be the sole author of DRC’s next chapter. Tshisekedi, Nangaa, the M23, Americans, Chinese, and the ghosts of the past will all shape what comes next.
