...Following the end of the Congo War, the various factions had agreed to a new constitution to replace the one left behind by the Mobutu regime that had never been replaced due to the fighting. The new Congolese constitution was modeled after that of South Africa, with an executive president elected by parliament and with strong protections for human rights. The UN's monitoring of the first elections in 2004 had resulted in the first indisputably free and fair elections in the renamed Democratic Republic of the Congo since the country's independence.
Laurent-Désiré Kabila, the man elected as a result of the 2004 elections, had been a rebel leader and one of the first warlords who agreed to cooperate with MINUSTAC. Despite Western wariness and reports about Kabila's pre-MINUSTAC wartime activities, the political energy needed for continued international support of the young democratic institutions was gone as the governments of the MINUSTAC countries regarded their job as finished and their obligation to the Congolese over.
The threshold for entry into the National Assembly, which would choose the president, mirrored South Africa's at 5%. This was meant to force parties to work together (something that was important as a few early parties were formed directly from former guerrilla bands), encourage consensus and yet make it so that a president would be unable to be chosen without input from other parties, with the hope that the result would be a stronger, more unified DRC. What happened post-2004 however, was Kabila consolidating many parties into his Allliance for the Presidential Majority (APM-
Alliance pour la majorité présidentielle) using either persuasion, promises of patronage, or threats. As a result, the following election in 2009 only saw three parties elected to the National Assembly, down from six in the previous parliament, and the APM winning nearly 70% of all seats.
Foreign disentanglement from the Congo coincided with the APM becoming increasingly brazen in their efforts to guard power. The opposition Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS-
Union pour la Démocratie et le Progrès Social) recruited former provisional president Étienne Tshisekedi to come out of retirement, with the longtime critic of both Mobutu and Kabila decrying the APM's anti-democratic tactics. The only other opposition party elected in 2009 was the National Restoration group led by Léon Kengo, who like Tshisekedi had served in the Mobutu regime, but unlike him, led a force of Mobutists who wanted to turn back the clock to before the war.
Not all of the APM members were happy about the turn the government was making, using official power to mete out favors and "correct" the results of the war. Vital Kamerhe, a former minister, resigned in protest and formed the Union for the Congolese Nation (UNC-
Union pour la nation congolaise) as a broad anti-corruption alliance against the AMP. Tshisekedi attempted to bring the UNC into the UDPS but Kamerhe refused, although he did admit that the UNC would likely push for a change of government if they held the balance of power.
Despite the opposition parties loudly criticizing the government's anemic progress on recovering from the war, the lack of water and power for many Congolese homes and attacking the government as riddled with corruption, voters seemingly approved of President Kabila's government enough to give him a third and final term.
In reality, almost as soon as polls closed, reports of vote irregularities began appearing and reports of pre-marked ballots for AMP parties being counted and vote boxes from precincts that the UDPS and UNC were expected to do well in disappearing. Foreign and UN monitors quickly agreed with the assessment of undemocratic practices and irregularities and the results, which conveniently saw the AMP retain a slim majority, were appealed to the Supreme Court. The Court, despite the evidence, certified the results as valid- either due to corruption, threats or the members of that body who owed their position there due to Kabila.
Despite Kabila returning for a third term, many Congolese believe that the APM lost the elections and that he is no longer the legitimate president. Despite the Congo War-era rhetoric of bringing stability and democracy to the Congo, former MINUSTAC members like the United States and United Kingdom don't seem to care all that much that they only accomplished oneo of those goals...