The Congo: Nervous at the Top

“I am a man of action, not a verbose politician,” burbled Moise Tshombe. Fairly bursting with pride, Tshombe recalled that when he became Premier last July, “nothing was working and three-fourths of the country was under rebel control.” Today, he beamed, “order has returned, and now the elections are terminated. Now let us all together, every Congolese, roll up our sleeves and make the great Congo into a country of happiness and prosperity.”

They were the words of a winner—which Tshombe certainly was. With the voting complete at last, his Conaco electoral alliance seemed certain of a landslide majority in the Congo’s 166-seat National Assembly. Though many votes were still uncounted, Moise had swept areas once hostile to him; he scored lopsided victories in provinces recently vacated by the rebels.

The landslide came as a very mixed blessing to President Joseph Kasavubu, who saw in Tshombe a powerful potential rival for his own job as President. During his five-year term, which ends in December, Kasavubu had used his constitutional powers to hire and fire three Premiers, and he seemed to be moving against Moise. In a radio broadcast,

Kasavubu announced that Tshombe’s provisional Government of Public Welfare had served its purpose—and would be dissolved “as soon as the definite election results are known.” Kasavubu himself would name a new interim Cabinet, which could presumably cut into Tshombe’s strength by ordering new elections in all provinces where the Conaco slate had run unopposed.

Whether Kasavubu could get away with it was a good question, for Tshombe was far more powerful than any of his predecessors had ever been. Minutes after Kasavubu’s announcement, Tshombe’s tough Interior Minister Godefroid Munongo issued his own communiqué: Tshombe would not allow himself to be fired, intended to stay in office at least until the new National Assembly is seated June 30.