DR Congo authorities suspend party of ex-president Kabila

Former President of the Democratic Republic of Congo Joseph Kabila addresses the media after a private bilateral meeting with US Secretary of State John Kerry at the US Department of State, on August 4, 2014. [AFP]

The Democratic Republic of Congo government said it has suspended the political party of former President Joseph Kabila, days after his properties were raided by security services.

"This decision follows the overt activism" of Kabila, who was president for 18 years up to 2019 and who remains head of his People's Party for Reconstruction and Democracy (PPRD), the interior ministry said in a statement dated Saturday.

PPRD activities "are suspended across all the national territory," the statement said.

There was no immediate reaction from the party.

Current leader President Felix Tshisekedi has accused Kabila of preparing "an insurrection" and backing an alliance that includes the M23 armed group that is fighting government forces in eastern DR Congo.

Kabila, 53, left the country before the last presidential election in 2023, according to a spokesman for his family.

But early April, in a message relayed by his staff, he said he would return at an unspecified date because the country was "in peril". There are unconfirmed suggestions that he will arrive, or is already in, the eastern city of Goma.

The family spokesman said on Thursday that security services mounted raids on Kabila's main property, a farm east of the Kinshasa, and on a compound belonging to the family in the capital.

The interior ministry statement accused Kabila's party of keeping "a guilty, or even complicit, silence" over "the Rwandan war of aggression".

Kinshasa, UN experts and several international powers have said M23 is backed by Rwanda, which denies the charge.

The armed group is at the centre of a new surge in conflict in eastern DR Congo, having taken the key cities of Goma and Bukavu.

The DR Congo ministry statement said Kabila has maintained an "ambiguous attitude" on the M23 rebellion, which he "has never condemned".

It criticised the "deliberate choice" of Kabila "to enter the country through the city of Goma, under the control of the enemy".

A separate statement from the country's justice ministry said the chief prosecutor had been asked to start legal action against Kabila for "his direction participation" in M23.