KINSHASA, Congo
DR Congo President Felix Tshisekedi’s government has “serious evidence” of a national security threat, a spokesman said on national television Tuesday night in the first official comments since reports of a failed coup plot emerged.
Presidential spokesman Tharcisse Kasongo Mwema said
that investigations were ongoing.
“No attempt to destabilize our democratic
institutions will be tolerated,” Kasongo said.
Presidential security adviser Francois Beya was
arrested by forces from Congo’s National Intelligence Agency last Saturday on
suspicion of undermining state security, according to human rights activist
Georges Kampiamba.
No details have been released about his arrest,
though he was believed to still be in National Intelligence Agency’s custody.
The reports were enough to prompt members of the
president’s political party to demonstrate in front of the Union for Democracy
and Social Progress (UDPS) party headquarters in Kinshasa in a show of support
for Tshisekedi.
Felix Tshisekedi, the son of the late Congolese
opposition political icon Etienne Tshisekedi, won the presidential election in
December 2018 after then-President Joseph Kabila did not run for a third term.
It was Congo’s first peaceful, democratic transfer
of power since independence from Belgium in 1960.
Kabila’s party, though, remained influential with a
majority in the parliament so a coalition government was formed. However,
Tshisekedi dissolved that alliance two years later amid political deadlock and
mustered enough support to then sideline Kabila’s party.
Tshisekedi named a new prime minister last February
after a Kabila ally who held the post resigned when lawmakers voted
overwhelmingly for his ouster.
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