What Explains President Joseph Kabila’s Quest for a Third Term until Pressured to Reluctantly Relinquish Power, late in 2018?

Abstract The era of Congolese political, socio-economic instability that has affected the central African region has returned, yet again. Nearly two decades after Joseph Kabila was installed as president of the Democratic Republic of Congo by the Southern African Development community (SADC), at the height of the regional central African war, following the assassination of his father, Laurent Desire Kabila, he has not shown any willingness to relinquish power. This is even so after the lapse of his constitutional mandates in December 2016, secured in 2006 and 2011. This continued reign, which is dependent on the repressive use of force by the state, has elicited spirited attempts by the political opposition, including the influential Catholic Church, calling for his immediate resignation. In response, the state has unleashed repression, which has resulted in fatalities and uprooted communities, resulting also in forced migration that destabilised the Great lakes sub-region. This article argues that the state reconstruction of Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo, following the hurried departure of Mobutu Sese Seko, engineered by Laurent Kabila, and his son Joseph, has failed to take root, resulting in sub-regional instability that has engulfed, not only the Great lakes region, but also southern Africa as a whole.