Kabila won't run in Congo's presidential election - spokesman

Democratic Republic of Congo's President Joseph Kabila arrives for a meeting with coalition members at his farm in Kingakati outside Kinshasa, August 7, 2018. /REUTERS

Democratic Republic of Congo President Joseph Kabila will not stand in December's presidential election, a spokesman said on Wednesday.

Spokesman Lambert Mende announced that former interior minister Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary will be the ruling coalition's candidate.

Mende's news conference puts an end to years of speculation about whether Kabila would defy term limits to run for a third term.

The selection of Ramazani, however, represents a defiant move by Kabila.

A former interior minister, he is under European Union sanctions for alleged human rights abuses, including deadly crackdowns by security forces on protesters.

Even so, the announcement that Kabila will not run again will ease fears in the region and beyond that a Kabila candidacy would drag the country back into the civil wars of the turn of the century in which millions died, mostly from hunger and disease.

The December 23 vote should now herald Congo's first democratic transition of power following decades marked by authoritarian rule, coups and deadly conflict.

Mende said that Ramazani was on his way to the electoral commission headquarters in the capital Kinshasa to file his candidacy.

Several opposition candidates, including former vice president Jean-Pierre Bemba and the president of Congo's largest opposition party Felix Tshisekedi, have also registered to run.