An intransitive transition

Efforts to promote a 'democratic transition' in Congo go back to April 1990 when Mobutu declared the end of the Second Republic. Since then, and despite the changing regimes and conditions experienced under Mobutu and the Kabilas, father and son, the rhetoric of democratisation has had little relationship to the realities of power struggles. The authoritarianism of regimes in Kinshasa, the covetousness of the country's neighbours, the paralysis of opposition groups, the marginalisation of civil society's forces - all have combined to ensure that transition remains stalled or intransitive.