By Sonia Rolley and David Lewis
(Reuters) – In 2018, Corneille Nangaa orchestrated the heavily criticised vote that handed President Felix Tshisekedi power. Today, he is the public face of a sprawling coalition of Congolese politicians and rebel groups fighting to oust him.
The success of his unlikely transition from election board boss to rebel leader has so far hinged on a partnership with Rwandan-backed insurgents who have fought a series of rebellions in the east against Democratic Republic of Congo’s central government during the last two decades.
Over the years, these Tutsi-led groups have seized provincial border towns like Bukavu and Goma, where M23 rebels marched into on Jan. 27 after a lightning advance that has forced thousands from their homes.
But Nangaa, who has swapped sharp suits and a close shave for combat fatigues and a thick grey beard, is setting his sights on a feat no rebel group has managed since 1997, when a Rwanda and Uganda-backed alliance overthrew the ageing autocrat Mobutu Sese Seko.
“Our objective is neither Goma nor Bukavu but Kinshasa, the source of all the problems,” he told Reuters in an interview. “In Congo, we have a weak state or a non-state. Where all the armed groups have sprung up, it’s because there’s no state. We want to recreate the state.”
He added that the fight was nationwide and he had many alliances, declining to give more details.
While it is hard to gauge the extent of the support for Nangaa’s Alliance Fleuve Congo (AFC), which sees the M23 rebels as their military wing, U.N. experts said in December that an increasing number of armed factions sided with them.
The United Nations, as well as the U.S., French and UK governments, have called on Rwanda to withdraw forces from Congo, where U.N, experts say Kigali has deployed 3,000-4,000 troops and provided significant firepower, including missiles and snipers, to support the M23.
Nangaa did not deny Rwandan support but said Kinshasa also had the backing of Burundi’s army, highlighting the risks of a wider conflict.
Rwanda has denied links with the rebels in the past while also defending their actions as self-defence. The government of Burundi, which has deployed some troops to Congo as part of a regional peacekeeping force, could not be immediately reached for comment.
ELECTION EXPERT, SANCTIONED REBEL
A native of northeastern Congo’s Haut-Uele Province near the border with South Sudan, Nangaa compiled the resume of a consummate technocrat through most of his career.
He studied economics at the University of Kinshasa before working for international organisations as a consultant on elections across Africa, including for the United Nations Development Programme and the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, according to a 2015 profile by Congo’s U.N.-backed Radio Okapi.
Named to lead Congo’s election commission in 2015 by then-President Joseph Kabila, Nangaa oversaw a 2018 election to choose Kabila’s successor that was riddled with accusations of fraud but resulted in Tshisekedi being named the winner despite numerous reports that his rival, Martin Fayulu, had won.
Nangaa, whose brother served as Haut-Uele governor from 2019-2024, later said he had agreed to change the results during 2018 elections “to save Congo and preserve the peace”.
The following year, he was sanctioned by the U.S. for embezzling funds meant for the election but Washington stopped short of calling into question the legitimacy of the result.
Replaced as head of the election commission in 2021, Nangaa initially said he was going to contest the 2023 vote but, after a public row with Tshisekedi over alleged backroom deals linked to the 2018 vote, he instead announced an alliance to oust him.
Last year, a military court sentenced Nangaa to death in absentia for war crimes, insurrection and treason, and the government accused Kabila of backing his movement, something Kabila’s coalition denied at the time.
Nangaa’s AFC coalition has succeeded in securing support from outside the North Kivu stronghold where Rwandan-backed rebels have previously been focused. These include the Zaire armed group in Ituri, on the border with Uganda, and various militia in South Kivu, U.N. experts said.
“M23 definitely started as a Tutsi movement, but look at the number of forces they are now deploying. It is composed of many more different groups,” said a diplomat.
Speaking to Reuters as M23 fighters fanned out across Goma, Nangaa said the group planned to secure the city and its people before pressing onward.
“We want to reestablish order and give the Congolese people back a government. We don’t want to go from one conquest to the next,” he said.
(Writing by David Lewis; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)
