THE ROLE OF POLITICAL PARTIES IN POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT: THE CASE OF ZAIRE . By JACK EDWARD WEBER II Bachelor of Arts in Education Northeastern Oklahoma. State University Tahlequah, Oklahoma 1967 Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate College of the Oklahoma.S:tate University in partial fulfillment . .-of the requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS July, 1975 Of<!.AftOMA STATE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY OCT 23 W75 THE ROLE OF POLITICAL PARTIES IN POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT: THE CASE OF ZAIRE Thesis Approved: nn.A~- Dean of the Graduate College 923625 ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS One of the truly enduring pleasures· of political science study is the unstinting courtesy and coc;iperatio~ .one mee.ts; .at the hat?-ds of fellow students and professors:•. · It: .is. difficult to· .enumerate: all those who assisted me in .. the preparation of .this thesis. Nonetheless, I must give special thanks to those.whose.ass.istance was· particqlarly valtlable. I should first thank Mr. Harold Sare, .Dr. Clifford Rich, Dr. Franz van Saur and Dr. Raymond.Habiby for their.comments.and criticism of this paper. Additiona,lly, .I should ex.tend .m.y .appreciation .to the staff · members of the Oklahoma State.University Library, who.met my many re­ quests with their usual kindness .and equanimity. Finally, I alJ!. especially grateful to my.wife, Debbie, and my children,. Todd and Reagan, for their .quiel: understanding· and continued assistance in the preparation.of this thesis. iii TABLE·· OF CONTENTS Chapter Page L INTRODUCTION 1 II. ANATOMY OF LEADERSHIP . 10 III. THE SECOND POLITICAL GENERATION 25 IV. CONCLUSIONS 46 A SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY • . 56 iv CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION In May 1967, President Jo~eph D. Mobutu established the Popular Movement of the Revolution (MPR) as one of tqe political parties that would participate in the national election~ in the Republic of Zaire. 1 From independence in June 1960, to the. coup d'etat that propelled Mobutu to the presidency iri November 1965, Zaire had a multi-party politica,l structure. Under the·constitution that was written in 1967, a two-party system was technically possible; however, it soon became.apparent that Zaire would follow the pattern of many othei;- African Stat~s by establish- ing a single-...party political system. The. official justification for this action was that the multi-party system had "caused divisions., anarchy, and confusion and that thousands of Congolese had been.killed and entire regions devastated in the name of nationalism and democraGy. 112 In other words, the multi-party political system reflected the cultural and ethnic fragmentation of Zaire. This fragmentation resulted in.a lack of consensus.on the type of political system that should be estab- lished, on the political role of the individual in the system, and generally, an absence of political trust. More simply stated, there 1The · Constitut.ion of 1967 allowed for "no more than two political parties" to be established. "Draft Constitution of the Democratic. Republic of the Congo," Translations on Africa, No. 566, 1967, Art. 4. 211 Single.Party for the Congo," The New York Times, May 24, 1970, col. 5, p. 70. 1 2 was a fragmented political culture that the multi-party system rein­ forced; thus barring compromise on basic political issues. This thesis is. concerned with three basic questions,. First, who are the current political leaders and what are their political back­ grounds? Second, how are these leaders attempting to establish a domi­ nant political culture? Third, what are the characteristics of the political culture that these leaders are attempting to create? Dev.elopment of a ·dominant political culture is one of the necessary steps taken by a society to bring about the orderly functioning of a political system, for without this development, the political system can not achieve a wide measure of legitimacy or consensus. For the purpose of this thesis, the creation ,of a dominant political culture within a society refers only to those·individuals or groups that are.allowed to participate in the political system. In culturally fragmented and ethnically .divided states such as Zaire, a dominant political culture is necessary to prevent the occurence of the political.instabil:i,ty such as that; which took place in Zaire from 1960 through 1967. Therefore, the problem to. which this the$is addresses itself is, can .. the present single-,.party political system of Zaire create a dominant polit:i,cal culture? President Mobutu is attempting to create a dominant political culture through the MPR. The, process.by which the .party is attempting to create this dominant culture is the polit;:ical socialization process, i.e., the process by which individuals are inducted into the political system, and the way their attitudes toward political objects are changed. The purpose of .this thesis is not to claim that the so-called tribal and regional hatred or disrespect and mistrust.have no place in Zairean 3 politics, but to show tqat there was an absence of a.dominant political culture at the time of independence, and that the multi-party system reinforced the fragmentation that existed at that time. The current attempts to CJieate a dominant·poJ,.itic,al culture through the s~ructure of the MPR have met with a measure of success. Literature Review There .. are pressures which act against the orderly expansion of·· the Zairean political system. · Zaire has been struggling with the require- ment of building the spiritual base of nationhood and the functional. structures of the state while performing the expected qaily operations · of a political system. The·basic problem, as Claude Ake states, is, "the problem of devel­ oping a political,cul~ure and inducing a commitment. to it;. 113 For the system as a whole; politic~! cul.ture provides a systematic structure of values anq national consideratio11s whi.ch ensures coherence in the per- forma11ce.of institutio11s·and organizatioqs, and giyes the system a measure.o f stab 1·1· ity. 4 The nature of the values, which make up the po:\.i- tical culture must.be such that the commitment to them furthers the. mai11tenance of the ,political. structure. To use Sidney Verba' s example: the belief that political power ought to be used to promote· the inte.rest of a parochially defined group may be .connnon held. But the fact that; members .of the politic~! system may differ on the pf:tr.ticular parochial group whose interest is to be promoted may lea4 . to grave political. s'trife. 5 3 Claude Ake, A Theory. of Politicl:J,l Integration (Homewopd, 1967), P• 1. 4rbid., pp. 1-4. 5Gabriel A. Almond and Sidney Verba, The Civic,Culture (Boston, 1963)' p. 11. 4 James Bustin, in his essay, "The Quest for Political Stability in the Congo," agrees with Verba. Bustin states that, "reliance on the normative and coercive apparatus of the state tends to be maximized in those countries where values of national consciousness and popular mobilization are most deficient. 116 In other words, where a poli,tical culture is not unquestionably rooted in a sufficiently widespread national sentiment, it tends to be derived from such sources as control of institutions, the effective use of state power, and adherence to a certain amount of legal formality. Gabriel A. Almond and G. Bingham Powell Jr. state that: The question of orientatioI).s ·to.the national political.system as.a whole constitutes one.of the most serious developmental problems in the political systems of the new nations.. In Africa these nations have been constructed from a great va­ riety of ethnic, political, and geographic subnational units which have no commonpolitical bonds and whose members by and large have little information and loyalty beyond this local unit. The process.of nation building involyes in some·re­ spect the dissemination of information about.and the conunit7 ment. to the nationa.l unit. At some point in the history of any new nation, as loyalty to the traditional subnational units conflicts with national loyalties and goals, the issues of D;ational identity are likely to become paramount.7 Neville Curtis, in his essay, "South Africa: .. The Politics of Fragmentation," writes about a political party and its efforts to create a fragmented political culture. The Nat;iona,list Party, with its control over the.political socialization process, is attempting to.fragment the peoples of.South Africa into social and ethnic groups, and effectively segregate one from the others. Thus, by its control of the political 6James Bustin, "The Quest for Political Stability in.the Congo," Africa, Herbert J. Spiro, ed. (New York, 1966), p. 21. 7Gabriel A. Almond and G. Bingpam Powell Jr., Comparative Politic!'!: A Developmental Approach .. (Bostpn, 1966), p. 52. 5 socialization process, the Nationalist Party of South Africa has at­ tempted to create as many as 20 different political cultures. 8 Peter M. Gukiina bases his entire book on the problems of creating a dominant political culture in Uganda. 9 Gukiina says that the most significant element of Uganda's politica,l unrest is.the diversity of Ugandan ethnic.groups. The first part of his study examines the absence of a dominant political culture in Uganda at the time of independence, with a review of the precolonial and colonial experiences. The second section of the book examines Dr. Milto.n Obote's (the former President of Uganda) attempts to create a dominant political culture through the creation .of a one .... party-,.dominant poli,tical system. This party stressed the need for national consensus and political unity and structured the government so as to give all eth,nic groups representation. Thus, through time,·nationa,l loyalties would emerge out of the central government's responsiveness to those interests and expectations widely held in all parts of Uganda.