DRCongo: The man leading M23 rebels

Former election-chief-turned-rebel-leader Corneille Nangaa has gone from overseeing Congo’s contested 2018 election to leading a powerful insurgency against the DRC’s President Félix Tshisekedi.

Now head of the Congo River Alliance (CRA) and allied with the Rwanda-backed M23, Mr Nangaa has seized key cities, including Goma, and vows to march on Kinshasa. Sentenced to death in absentia, he remains at the centre of the DRC’s escalating conflict. How did he rise to power?

Born on 9 July 1970 in what is now Haut-Uele Province in the DRC, Nangaa started his career far from the battlefield. He studied economics at the University of Kinshasa before working with international organisations, including the UN Development Programme.

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His political breakthrough came in 2015 when he was appointed president of the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI) under then-president Joseph Kabila. He was responsible for organising the delayed 2018 elections and controversially declared Félix Tshisekedi the winner. His tenure at CENI ended in 2021 amid allegations of electoral fraud and US sanctions for “undermining DRC elections“.

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