Kabila sets up office at parly
2008-11-18 18:04
Kinshasa - President Joseph Kabila of the Democratic Republic of Congo is moving into an office inside the parliament, sources said on Tuesday, provoking concern from some deputies there.
"A working office is being set up in the heart of the National Assembly for the president," said a source at the presidential palace.
"It's not a move, but a working office that will allow him to be closer to the party leaders and parliamentary groups to allow for dialogue on the situation in the east of the country," the source added.
The new office, in the building that houses both the national assembly and the senate, is normally occupied by the speaker of the national assembly Vital Kamerhe, who has had to move elsewhere.
Colleagues of Kamerhe expressed concern that Kabila's move, by putting the president who holds executive powers under the same roof as the legislators, was unconstitutional.
Normally, Kabila works in the presidential palace on the banks of the Congo at the northern limit of Kinshasa; parliament is situated in the city centre, less than a kilometre from the capital's largest military base.
Government troops in the east of the country are in disarray in the face of a push by rebels of Laurent Nkunda's National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) which has displaced an estimated 250 000 civilians.
Kabila on Monday sacked his military chief of staff Dieudonne Kayembe, replacing him with General Didier Etumba Longomba.
Opposition deputy Jean-Claude Vuemba criticised the move.
The national assembly, a "space of liberty and tolerance", was he said "being transformed into a police state" because of the presence of Kabila's security officers.
On October 27, Kabila named a new government of "combat and reconstruction", sacking his defence and interior ministers in a bid to galvanise the military's response to the rebel threat.
Three days later, deputies in the national assembly called unanimously on the new government to start direct talks with Nkunda's rebels, something Nkunda has so far refused to do.