DR Congo: Tshisekedi, Kabila to "govern together"

DR Congo's president Felix Tshisekedi and his predecessor Joseph Kabila on Wednesday announced that they had decided to form a coalition government following successful talks.

The coalition has been necessitated by the fact that Tshisekedi's party controls only 50 seats in parliament compared to 342 controlled by Kabila's Common Front for Congo.

According to media reports, the new president has not been able to push through his choice for prime minister because of this disparity.

But in a joint statement on Wednesday, Tshisekedi and Kabila said that although the "FCC holds an absolute majority in the National Assembly" to reflect the will of the people expressed in the poll, the FCC and the CACH are affirming "their common will to govern together as part of a coalition government".

The stalemate had put a brake on Tshisekedi's declared ambitions of reforming a country marked by corruption and rights abuses.