DR Congo: can the rules of presidential succession be changed without breaking the constitutional order?

The Democratic Republic of the Congo is going through a new period of tension over its Constitution. On 15 September 2026, demonstrations held in Kinshasa and several other cities were dispersed by the police, at times with tear gas and warning shots. Protesters denounce constitutional reform plans which they suspect could open the way to a third term for President Félix Tshisekedi. The authorities respond that any change would have to pass through the will of the people and, where appropriate, a referendum.

Beyond the length of one man’s time in office, the debate concerns the strength of the limits that the Constitution itself places on those who exercise power. Can a procedure provided for by the text be used to alter a rule that the same text expressly removes from constitutional amendment?

An explicit constitutional lock

The 2006 Congolese Constitution is clear on this point. Article 70 provides that the President of the Republic is elected for five years and may be re-elected only once. Article 220 then protects several matters from any amendment, including the number and length of presidential terms, as well as the republican form of the State, universal suffrage, the independence of the judiciary and political and trade-union pluralism.

Depending on the legal tradition, constitutional lawyers describe such provisions as entrenched clauses or eternity clauses. The principle is straightforward: certain rules are placed beyond the reach of the ordinary amendment procedure so that a political majority of the day cannot, by itself, alter the basic conditions under which power is exercised.

Article 220 performs that function. It protects not only a term limit, but also a particular conception of alternation in power and of the limits imposed on the holder of the presidency.

Amending the Constitution or adopting a new one?

Article 218 lays down the constitutional amendment procedure. An initiative may come from the President of the Republic, the Government, Parliament or a fraction of the population. The text may then be submitted to a referendum or, in some cases, approved by Parliament sitting in Congress with the required majority.

Article 220 places a limit on that procedure. Supporters of deeper change therefore draw a distinction between amending the existing Constitution and replacing it with an entirely new one.

The distinction is not merely a matter of words. An amendment changes the Constitution while preserving the legal order that it organises. The adoption of a new Constitution belongs, in theory, to original constituent power — the power to establish a new constitutional order.

The difficulty remains: can institutions created by the 2006 Constitution organise its replacement if the effect sought would allow a rule that Article 220 deliberately made unamendable to be altered? This is the point on which many objections from the opposition, legal scholars and civil-society organisations are concentrated.

The referendum law and the route chosen

In June 2026, the Congolese Parliament adopted legislation setting out the conditions for holding a referendum. The text governs the calling and organisation of the vote, the campaign, counting and electoral disputes. It also provides for the possibility of an enlarged constituent assembly if a new Constitution is proposed.

That provision has attracted much of the criticism. Its defenders see it as a framework through which the people can exercise sovereignty directly. Its opponents argue that an ordinary statute cannot create a mechanism capable of setting aside a prohibition written into the Constitution itself.

The disagreement therefore concerns the hierarchy of legal norms: an Act of Parliament must comply with the Constitution. In principle, it cannot neutralise a rule that stands above it. The referral of the referendum law to the Constitutional Court before promulgation gives the question an immediate legal dimension.

Is a referendum enough?

The argument for a referendum rests on a proposition that is difficult to challenge in principle: the people are the holders of sovereignty and may wish to give themselves a new Constitution.

But the exercise of that sovereignty is itself governed by rules. Who drafts the question? Who controls the electoral register? What safeguards govern the campaign? What access do competing positions have to the media? Which institution decides disputes? A majority of votes does not, on its own, answer those questions.

A referendum draws legitimacy not only from the result, but also from the conditions in which the vote is organised.

The precedent of 2015

The present debate inevitably recalls the tensions of 2015. Under President Joseph Kabila, an attempt to change the electoral framework triggered major demonstrations, with the opposition suspecting the authorities of seeking to prolong the presidential term.

The two situations are not identical, and comparison should not erase their legal and political differences. The 2015 episode nevertheless left a lasting distrust: any reform that directly or indirectly affects the rules of presidential succession is now read through the question of remaining in power.

Institutional reform and the incumbent’s interest

Supporters of a new Constitution advance arguments that go beyond the presidential term: the functioning of institutions, decentralisation, relations between central government and the provinces, the role of Parliament and the organisation of the judiciary. These debates exist and cannot all be reduced to a personal strategy.

The context nevertheless makes separation difficult. When a serving President leads a reform capable of changing the conditions of his own eligibility, the institutional interest and the interest of the incumbent overlap. Even proposals that may be defensible on their merits can then be interpreted through the political benefit that the government of the day might derive from them.

Trust matters as much as formal compliance with procedure.

The timing

The DRC is also facing a grave security situation in the east, with armed groups present and a conflict involving the AFC/M23. Regional tensions and population displacement remain significant.

Opening a major constitutional reform in such circumstances raises a question of timing. Supporters may argue that the country’s difficulties themselves demonstrate the limits of the existing institutional architecture. Opponents may reply that a security crisis of this scale does not provide the best conditions for a free, calm and sufficiently long constitutional debate.

The law alone cannot settle that disagreement; it also requires a political judgement about when a reform of this magnitude can properly be undertaken.

What is Article 220 for?

Term limits perform a precise function: they make alternation in office possible without requiring a finding that the incumbent governed badly. At the end of the prescribed period, the office must pass to someone else.

Making such a rule unamendable is intended to prevent those with an immediate interest in relaxing it from changing it. The protection concerns the duration of power rather than the identity of a particular office-holder.

The difficulty arises when a reform procedure is used to move the boundary between what may be changed and what was meant to remain beyond reach.

Beyond 2028

Félix Tshisekedi’s current term is due to end in 2028, so public debate often focuses on the possibility of a third term. The institutional question is broader.

If a procedure now makes it possible to bypass a clause declared unamendable, it would establish a precedent available to a future government. Conversely, to hold that no new Constitution can ever be adopted while the 2006 order remains in force creates another difficulty: can a society be legally prevented from refounding its constitutional order?

The Congolese debate lies between these two requirements: protecting fundamental guarantees against manipulation while recognising that no Constitution can claim to organise a country’s political future for all time.

The question to be decided is therefore less whether a power of constitutional refoundation exists in the abstract than the conditions under which it may be exercised: who may initiate it, by what procedure, and with what safeguards so that constitutional rupture does not become merely an instrument of the authorities already in office?