On January 27, 2012 the Michael S. Ansari Africa Center hosted a luncheon briefing by Angèle Makombo-Eboum, chair and former presidential candidate of the Ligue des Démocrates Congolais (LIDEC) party and spokesperson for the Forces de l’Opposition Réunies au Congo (FORECO) coalition, on the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s (DRC) November 2011 presidential election and the subsequent political climate in the country.
The elections drew unusually strong criticism from international election observers, including the Carter Center and the European Union; the Archbishop of Kinshasa, Cardinal Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya, flatly stated that the results “comply with neither the truth nor justice.” Makombo-Eboum, the only woman candidate for the presidency before she dropped out of the race in the hopes of uniting the opposition around a single candidate, addressed both the massive fraud that took place during the poll as well as possible ways for the DRC to transition out of what she called “a political crisis,” advocating for a Government of National Unity that would oversee transparent elections. The off-the-record discussion was moderated by J. Peter Pham, director of the Ansari Africa Center, and included participants from the Executive Branch and Congress, democracy and other advocacy groups, and the private sector.