2011, the fifth year of the Third Republic of the DRC, was a crucial year: the year when the president and members of parliament first came up for reelection. With the 2006 elections deemed generally credible, confirming the country's engagement in the process of democratisation was thus at stake. While no final verdict can be drawn as yet, it is widely acknowledged that the sole true merit of the 2011 elections is that they were even held. The results are widely contested, and have led to new and serious political tensions.
This is not a yearbook, but an attempt to shed light on the situation in the DRC at this point in the country's history by comparing and contrasting viewpoints and questions.
It begins with two articles on the year's political developments with a special focus on the elections.
Several chapters are ‘progress reports' on fundamental aspects of the country's social and economic advances and its external relations. These reports, whether on debt reduction, mining sector reform, or investments in electricity and infrastructure, show how the country's reconstruction remains fragile and unable to address poverty effectively.
Specific questions are also tackled, among them the crucial but complex and tense relations with neighbouring Angola, and the pockets of potential armed conflict that emerged or persisted in the ‘post-war' period that followed the 2003 peace agreements.
Finally, the book includes critical analyses of recent major works with grids for interpreting actual circumstances in the Congo.