Kinshasa, October 2, 2026 – The national dialogue announced by President Félix Tshisekedi marks a turning point in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s political trajectory. It must be designed as a political mechanism for consultation and pacification, aimed at forging compromises on peace and national cohesion, a Paris-based lawyer suggested on Friday during an interview.
A decisive shift toward consultation
The initiative represents a major shift in how the country addresses its deep-seated fractures. “The national dialogue announced by President Félix Tshisekedi must be conceived as a political mechanism for consultation and pacification, not as a parallel institution,” declared Me Ben Touere, a lawyer at the Paris Bar. “It can help seek compromises on peace, national cohesion, institutional reforms, and the functioning of the State. However, it must not become a second Parliament, a parallel Government, a political court, or a de facto constituent assembly.”
The legal boundaries that will define its success
According to this doctor of public law and lecturer at Sorbonne Paris Nord University, any political conclusions emerging from the dialogue “could only produce lasting legal effects after being translated by the constitutionally competent institutions.”
“Legislative reform must go through Parliament; public policy falls under the Government; a constitutional question belongs to the Constitutional Court; and a matter reserved for the direct decision of the people must be submitted to them in the forms provided by law,” he explained. He added that the proposed framework thus rests on a sequence: dialogue, consensus, intervention by competent institutions, constitutional review, and, when required or legally retained, popular consultation.
Constitutional anchor: sovereignty belongs to the people
Me Elenga’s analysis recalls that Article 5 of the Constitution enshrines the principle that national sovereignty belongs to the people, who exercise it directly through elections or referendums and indirectly through their representatives.
“Neither the majority, nor the opposition, nor the participants in a dialogue can therefore claim national sovereignty,” he stressed. He argued that this approach must ultimately aim to reform and consolidate the State through dialogue, rather than create mechanisms likely to weaken or share its prerogatives, the analysis concludes.
