Félix Tshisekedi
Congolese politician, son of opposition leader Étienne Tshisekedi, elected President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2018 and re-elected in 2023.
Biography
Félix Tshisekedi was born in Kinshasa in 1963, the son of Étienne Tshisekedi, a three-time prime minister of Zaire who founded the opposition Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS) in the early 1980s. His father's defiance of Mobutu Sese Seko led to the family's house arrest in their home village in Kasaï, interrupting Félix's studies until Mobutu let them leave in 1985.
He rose through the UDPS, becoming its national secretary for external relations in 2008. He won a National Assembly seat for Mbuji-Mayi in 2011 but refused to sit, alleging fraud, and the mandate was cancelled. He became the party's vice secretary general in 2016 and, after his father's death, was elected UDPS leader and presidential candidate on 31 March 2018.
He was declared the winner of the December 2018 election amid accusations of irregularities, and the Constitutional Court dismissed Martin Fayulu's challenge. His inauguration in January 2019 was the country's first peaceful transfer of power since independence, but Joseph Kabila's coalition kept control of parliament and he had to govern with it until he broke with it in 2021. He chaired the African Union in 2021-2022 and was re-elected in December 2023.
His presidency has been shaped by war in the east. He refused talks with the M23 rebels, cut diplomatic ties with Rwanda in January 2025 over its backing for them, and in May 2024 survived an attempted coup in Kinshasa.
