Former vice president of DR Congo Jean-Pierre Bemba, who was acquitted last month of war crimes, was on Friday named by his party as a candidate in presidential polls planned for December.
“We unanimously decided to renew Senator Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo as national president of the Movement for the Liberation of the Congo for a five-year term and to name him as our candidate for the presidential election of December 23, 2018,” said the party’s Jean Jacques Mamba.
This announcement from the party was at a congress in Kinshasha.Bemba was earlier this week known to be in Belgium having gained an interim release from the court.
On June 8, judges at the International Criminal Court (ICC), overturned a 2016 conviction against Bemba for five counts of war crimes committed by his militia in the Central African Republic in 2002-2003 and was given an 18 year term the longest ever to be handed down by the court.
In the wake of the events, the DRC government said Bemba could apply for a diplomatic passport to return home after he was acquitted of war crimes in The Hague.
The DRC is in the grip of a crisis over the future of President Joseph Kabila, who has ruled the country since 2001 and has remained in office, despite a two-term constitutional limit that expired in December 2016.
He has remained in power under a constitutional clause that enables a president to stay in office until his or her successor is elected.
It however still remains unclear whether he faces any threat of prosecution if he sets foot on DRC soil, after authorities issued a warrant in 2007 against him over the violence and for alleged arson at the Supreme Court.
