Joseph Kabila Kabange ( , ; born 4 June 1971) is a Congolese politician and former military officer who was the fourth president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 2001 to 2019. He took office ten days after the assassination of his father, President Laurent-Désiré Kabila, in the context of the Second Congo War. He was allowed to remain in power as the president of the new transitional government after the 2002 peace agreements ended the war. Kabila founded the People's Party for Reconstruction and Democracy (PPRD) and was elected president in 2006. He was re-elected for a second term in 2011. Since stepping down after the 2018 election, Kabila, as a former president, is a senator for life. Kabila was the country's second-longest serving president.
Kabila was born in a village in the present-day South Kivu province of the DRC. His father, Laurent-Désiré Kabila, lived in isolation while leading a dissident movement against the dictator Mobutu Sese Seko. The younger Kabila later received education and military training in Tanzania and Uganda. He studied at Makerere University before the First Congo War broke out in 1996. His father was a founding member of the AFDL movement to overthrow Mobutu with the backing of Rwanda and Uganda. Joseph Kabila participated in the war, which ended with his father becoming the president, and afterwards studied at the PLA National Defense University in China. He was appointed as the deputy chief of staff of the Congolese Armed Forces, and was briefly the chief of staff in 1998, at the outbreak of the Second Congo War. In 2000, he became the chief of staff of the Land Forces.
After his father's assassination, Kabila succeeded him as the president, and restarted the peace process that had previously stalled. He is credited with ending the Second Congo War and restoring stability to most of the country, though conflict continued in the east against rebel forces supported by neighboring Rwanda and Uganda. As the head of the transitional government, he helped organize electoral institutions and presided over the DRC's first free multi-party election in decades. After that Kabila led an increasingly authoritarian government, and his re-election in 2011 was marred with accusations of fraud. During his tenure, he encouraged foreign investment in the mining industry and improved the infrastructure. The size of the country's economy increased by five times. However, the growth was highly unequal, and the majority of the population still lived below the international poverty line by the time he left office. The Kabila administration became known for cronyism, corruption, and human rights violations, including security forces killing protestors. The DRC consistently scored low in the Corruption Perceptions Index and The Economist Democracy Index.
The DRC experienced a political crisis during the last years of Kabila's second term. His constitutional mandate was due to expire in 2016, according to the 2006 constitution. Officials suggested that an election would be held in November 2016, but it was delayed until early 2018. Kabila's popularity declined and he also faced growing pressure from the international community to give up power. An agreement was reached after mediation by the Catholic hierarchy to appoint a new government and prepare to hold elections, but they were delayed again. In August 2018, Kabila announced that he would step down and not seek a third term in the upcoming election that December. In January 2019, Kabila was succeeded by Félix Tshisekedi in the country's first peaceful transition of power. Independent observers concluded that Tshisikedi lost heavily to another candidate, Martin Fayulu, and that Kabila had fixed the official result for the candidate most likely to be helpful to him.
He remained influential in the DRC's politics after he left office. Kabila's political alliance, the Common Front for Congo, initially held the majority of seats in the parliament, and formed a coalition government in August 2019 with Tshisekedi's Heading for Change alliance after months of negotiations. Tshisekedi ended the coalition in 2020 over the blocking of his agenda. In 2021 he removed the last of Kabila's allies from the government, and in 2023 Kabila went into self-imposed exile abroad. Tshisekedi accused him of supporting the resurgent campaign of the Rwandan-backed M23 movement in 2025, which he denied. A Congolese military court tried Kabila in absentia for treason and sentenced him to death. In 2026, Kabila was sanctioned by the United States.
Early life and education (1971–1996) Joseph Kabila Kabange and his twin sister Jaynet Kabila were born on 4 June 1971 in Hewa Bora II, a village in the Maquis of Fizi, in the present-day South Kivu Province, DR Congo. They were among the ten children of the long time rebel and politician Laurent-Désiré Kabila and his wife Sifa Mahanya. Kabila was a member of the Luba people, with ancestry in the Katanga Province, while Mahanya was a member of the Bangubangu tribe from the Maniema Province. Kabila had taken part in the Simba rebellion during the 1960s and continued to be the leader of a rebel quasi-state in South Kivu opposed to the dictator Mobutu Sese Seko. Joseph Kabila's childhood coincided with the low point of his father's career, when he was living in isolation while leading a rebel movement, with few records of Kabila's early days. His ancestry later became a matter of controversy, with claims by his opponents that his mother was a Rwandan Tutsi, or that he was a taxi driver from Tanzania and was not a legitimate son of Laurent-Désiré Kabila. No conclusive evidence has ever emerged to prove the claims.
Kabila attended a primary school organized by his father's rebel forces, before moving to Tanzania in the late 1970s, where he completed primary and secondary school, in Mbeya and Dar es Salaam. Due to his father's status as an enemy of Zairean strongman Mobutu Sese Seko, Kabila posed as a member of the Tanzanian Fipa people in his school years to avoid detection by Zairean intelligence agents. Having been raised outside the DRC, he only spoke English and Swahili fluently when he was young, and by the time he became president he was not fluent in either French, the DRC's official language, or Lingala, a common language in Kinshasa.
Guerrilla and army years (1996–2001) Following high school, Kabila followed a military curriculum in Tanzania, then at Makerere University in Uganda. In October 1996, Laurent-Désiré Kabila launched the campaign in Zaire to oust the Mobutu regime with his newly formed army, the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire (AFDL). It occurred as part of a war instigated by Rwanda, Uganda, and Angola, which supported the AFDL's creation to provide Congolese legitimacy for their effort against Mobutu. The Rwandan officer James Kabarebe, who oversaw his training, wanted Joseph Kabila to take part in the AFDL campaign. He became the commander of an AFDL unit that included "kadogos" (child soldiers) and likely played a key role in major battles on the road to Kinshasa, but his exact whereabouts during the war have been difficult to establish. Joseph Kabila appears to have been present at the liberation of Kisangani where media reports identified him as commander of the rebel force that took the city after four days of intense fighting. The AFDL, with much assistance by foreign troops, waged a lightning war that led to the collapse of Mobutu's Zairean Armed Forces (FAZ). Laurent-Désiré Kabila declared himself president in May 1997 and restored the country's original name. His government received widespread international recognition.
Following the AFDL's victory, Joseph Kabila went on to get further training at the PLA National Defense University, in Beijing, China, starting in June 1998. At some point Kabila also obtained a bachelor's degree in international studies and diplomacy from Washington International University by distance learning. While he was in China, he was appointed as the deputy chief of staff of the Congolese Armed Forces (FAC), which was established as the national military by his father. He was promoted to the rank of major general. The outbreak of the Second Congo War occurred after a falling out between the Kabila government and its former allies during 1998 over the Hutu insurgency and control of resources. The younger Kabila served under James Kabarebe, who had planned the AFDL's military operations and was appointed chief of staff of the FAC after their victory. He formed a strong bond with Joseph Kabila, who, having limited military experience, looked up to Kabarebe. In July 1998, as tensions escalated, Kabarebe was dismissed from his post and returned to Rwanda, where he began planning another invasion of the DRC with Paul Kagame. Joseph Kabila called Kabarebe from China and tried to prevent the outbreak of fighting, but was unsuccessful.
After his return from China, Kabila rose in importance. He was among his father's advisors that were involved in securing Kinshasa early in the war, when Kabarebe's Rwandan forces launched an air assault near the capital and the president fled to Katanga. The attack was stopped by allied Zimbabwean and Angolan troops. The start of the war showed the recently appointed replacement for Kabarebe, Célestin Kifwa, to be incompetent. He was replaced by the younger Kabila, then aged 27, in mid-August 1998. Joseph Kabila led the armed forces only briefly, being replaced on 20 October 1998 by Eddy Kapend. The FAC was in a poor condition, mainly consisting of ex-FAZ soldiers and kadogos, so the Kabila government depended on foreign troops from Zimbabwe, Angola, Namibia, and briefly Chad, who defended the front line and maintained logistics. Hutu fighters from Hutu refugee camps launched offensives against the rebel forces and their Rwandan and Ugandan backers. In 2000, Joseph Kabila became the chief of staff of the Land Forces. He was still in that post as of December 2000.
Presidency (2001–2019) Second Congo War negotiations
Joseph Kabila was inaugurated as president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo on 26 January 2001, ten days after the assassination of his father. He became the interim president on 17 January, and it was formally announced on 18 January. At 29 years old, he was considered young and inexperienced, and reportedly did not want to become the president, but was the only candidate that his father's advisers could agree on. He was a relatively unknown figure when he assumed office, and not even his exact age was known.
Kabila inherited a country on the verge of economic and political collapse after years of war and several million deaths, with Rwandan and Ugandan troops occupying the east, and his government in the west dependent on troops from Zimbabwe, Angola, and Namibia. The rebel groups had demands, and the civilian opposition wanted a democratic government. In his inauguration speech, Joseph Kabila spoke about the need to "restore peace and national communion," restart the negotiations that stalled under his predecessor, return to democracy, and liberalize the economy. A week after taking office he visited Washington, D.C., Paris, and Brussels, to raise support and increase his international and domestic legitimacy. While in the United States, he met with Rwandan president Paul Kagame to discuss the war. During his trip he also promised reforms, including the opening up of the DRC's mining sector to foreign investment, which was seen positively by the IMF, the World Bank, and the European Union.