Democratic Republic of the Congo

The Democratic Republic of the Congo is named after the Congo River, which flows through the country. The Congo River is the world's deepest river and the world's third-largest river by discharge. The Comité d'études du haut Congo ("Committee for the Study of the Upper Congo"), established by King Leopold II of Belgium in 1876, and the International Association of the Congo, established by him in 1879, were also named after the river.

The Congo River was named by early European sailors after the Kingdom of Kongo and its Bantu inhabitants, the Kongo people, when they encountered them in the 16th century. The word Kongo comes from the Kongo language, also called Kikongo. According to American writer Samuel Henry Nelson: "It is probable that the word 'Kongo' itself implies a public gathering and that it is based on the root konga, 'to gather' (trans[itive])." The modern name of the Kongo people, Bakongo, was introduced in the early 20th century.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo has been known in the past as, in chronological order, the Congo Free State, Belgian Congo, the Republic of the Congo-Léopoldville, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of Zaire, before returning to its current name, the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

At the time of independence, the country was named the Republic of the Congo-Léopoldville to distinguish it from its neighbour the Republic of the Congo. With the promulgation of the Luluabourg Constitution in August 1964, the country became the DRC. It was renamed Zaire, a past name for the Congo River, in October 1971 by President Mobutu Sese Seko as part of his Authenticité initiative.

The word Zaire is from a Portuguese adaptation of a Kikongo word nzadi ("river"), a truncation of nzadi o nzere ("river swallowing rivers"). The river was known as Zaire during the 16th and 17th centuries. Congo seems to have replaced Zaire gradually in English usage during the 18th century. Congo is the preferred English name in 19th-century literature, although references to Zaire as the name used by the natives (i.e., derived from Portuguese usage) remained common.

In 1992, the Sovereign National Conference voted to change the name of the country to the "Democratic Republic of the Congo", but the change was not made. The country's name was later restored by President Laurent-Désiré Kabila when he overthrew Mobutu in 1997. To distinguish it from the neighboring Republic of the Congo, it is sometimes referred to as Congo (Kinshasa) or Congo-Kinshasa. Its name is sometimes also abbreviated as Congo DR, DR Congo, DRC, the DROC, and RDC (in French).

=== Early history ===

The area of the present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo was inhabited as early as 90,000 years ago, and later underwent major demographic and technological change with the expansion of Bantu peoples during the first millennium BC. From this process emerged organised states and empires, including early federated states around Pool Malebo and later the Kingdom of Kongo, as well many others such as the Luba and Lunda Empires.

From the 1870s to 1908, King Leopold II of Belgium established and ruled the Congo Free State as his personal possession, using forced labour and concessionary companies to extract rubber, while violence, disease, and exploitation caused catastrophic population loss. International exposure of the abuses, notably through the 1904 Casement Report and growing diplomatic pressure, led to Leopold's loss of control and the annexation of the territory as the Belgian Congo in 1908.

The Belgian Congo was governed directly from Brussels, and although this change in administration ended the most extreme abuses of the Congo Free State, Belgian rule largely continued earlier patterns of direct control, racial segregation, forced labour, and repression, while prioritising economic exploitation through close cooperation between the state, missionaries, and private companies. After World War II, urbanisation, development programmes, and limited social improvements fostered a small African middle class, but political exclusion persisted, contributing to the rise of nationalist movements and escalating demands for independence in the late 1950s.

In May 1960, a growing nationalist movement, the Congolese National Movement led by Patrice Lumumba, won the parliamentary elections. Lumumba became the first prime minister of the Republic of the Congo, on 24 June 1960. The parliament elected Joseph Kasa-Vubu of the ABAKO party as president. Other parties that emerged included the African Solidarity Party led by Antoine Gizenga, and the National Party of the People led by Albert Delvaux and Laurent Mbariko.

The Belgian Congo achieved independence on 30 June 1960 under the name "Republic of the Congo". Shortly after independence the Force Publique mutinied, and on 11 July the province of Katanga, led by Moïse Tshombe, and South Kasai engaged in secessionist uprisings against the new leadership. Most of the 100,000 Europeans who had remained behind after independence fled the country. After the United Nations rejected Lumumba's call for help to put down the secessionist movements, Lumumba asked for assistance from the Soviet Union, who accepted and sent military supplies and advisers. On 23 August, the Congolese armed forces invaded South Kasai.

Lumumba was dismissed from office on 5 September 1960 by Kasa-Vubu, who publicly blamed him for massacres by the armed forces in South Kasai and for involving Soviets in the country. On 7 September, Lumumba made a speech to the Congolese House of Representatives, arguing his dismissal was illegal under the nation's laws. Congolese law gave parliament, not the president, the authority to dismiss a government minister. The House and Senate both rejected the dismissal of Lumumba, but the removal proceeded unconstitutionally.

On 14 September, Colonel Joseph Mobutu, with the backing of the US and Belgium, removed Lumumba from office. On 17 January 1961, Lumumba was handed over to Katangan authorities and executed by Belgian-led Katangan troops. A 2001 investigation by Belgium's Parliament found Belgium "morally responsible" for the murder of Lumumba, and the country has since officially apologised for its role in his death.

Amidst widespread confusion and chaos, a temporary government was created led by educated technocrats, the College of Commissioners-General. Katangan secession ended in January 1963 with the assistance of UN forces. Several short-lived governments took over in quick succession, led by Joseph Ileo, Cyrille Adoula, and then Tshombe.

Meanwhile, in the east of the country, Soviet and Cuban-backed rebels called the Simbas rose up, taking a significant amount of territory and proclaiming a communist "People's Republic of the Congo" in Stanleyville. The Simbas were pushed out of Stanleyville in November 1964 during Operation Dragon Rouge, a military operation conducted by Belgian and U.S. forces to rescue hundreds of hostages. Congolese government forces fully defeated the Simba rebels by November 1965.

Lumumba had previously appointed Mobutu chief of staff of the new Congolese National Army. Taking advantage of the leadership crisis between Kasavubu and Tshombe, Mobutu garnered enough support within the army to launch a coup. A constitutional referendum the year before Mobutu's coup of 1965 resulted in the country's official name being changed to the "Democratic Republic of the Congo". In 1971 Mobutu would change the name of the country again, this time to "Republic of Zaire".

Mobutu had the staunch support of the United States because of his opposition to communism; the U.S. believed that his administration would serve as an effective counter to communist movements in Africa. A one-party system was established, and Mobutu declared himself head of state. He periodically held elections in which he was the only candidate. Although relative peace and stability were achieved, Mobutu's government was marked by severe human rights violations, political repression, a cult of personality, and corruption.

By late 1967, Mobutu had successfully neutralized his political opponents and rivals, either through co-opting them into his regime, arresting them, or rendering them otherwise politically impotent. Throughout the late 1960s, Mobutu continued to shuffle his governments and cycle officials in and out of the office to maintain control. Joseph Kasa-Vubu's death in April 1969 ensured that no person with credentials from the First Republic could challenge his rule. By the early 1970s, Mobutu was attempting to assert Zaire as a leading African nation. He traveled frequently across the continent while the government became more vocal about African issues, particularly those relating to the southern region. Zaire established semi-clientelist relationships with several smaller African states, especially Burundi, Chad, and Togo.

Corruption became so common the term "le mal Zairois", meaning "Zairian sickness", meaning gross corruption, theft and mismanagement, was coined, reportedly by Mobutu. Mobutu accumulated a large personal fortune through the diversion of state funds, foreign aid and revenue from natural resources, while Zaire remained impoverished and heavily indebted. Zaire became a kleptocracy.

In a campaign to identify himself with African nationalism, starting on 1 June 1966, Mobutu renamed the nation's cities: Léopoldville became Kinshasa (the country was known as Congo-Léopoldville), Stanleyville became Kisangani, Elisabethville became Lubumbashi, and Coquilhatville became Mbandaka. In 1971, Mobutu renamed the country the "Republic of Zaire", its fourth name change in eleven years and its sixth overall. The Congo River was renamed the Zaire River.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Mobutu was invited to visit the U.S. on several occasions, meeting with U.S. presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, U.S. relations with Mobutu cooled, as he was no longer deemed necessary as a Cold War ally. Opponents within Zaire stepped up demands for reform. This atmosphere contributed to Mobutu's declaring the Third Republic in 1990, whose constitution was supposed to pave the way for democratic reform. The reforms turned out to be largely cosmetic. Mobutu continued his rule until the armed forces forced him to flee into exile in 1997. From 1990 to 1993, the United States supported Mobutu's efforts to obstruct political transition, and later also backed Laurent-Désiré Kabila's rebellion, which brought down Mobutu's regime."

In September 1997, Mobutu died in exile in Morocco.

By 1996, following the Rwandan Civil War and genocide, and the ascension of a Tutsi-led government in Rwanda, Rwandan Hutu militia forces (Interahamwe) fled to eastern Zaire and used refugee camps as bases for incursions against Rwanda. They allied with the Zairian Armed Forces to launch a campaign against Congolese ethnic Tutsis in eastern Zaire.

A coalition of Rwandan and Ugandan armies invaded Zaire to overthrow the government of Mobutu, launching the First Congo War. The coalition allied with some opposition figures, led by Laurent-Désiré Kabila, becoming the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of the Congo. In 1997 Mobutu fled the country and Kabila marched into Kinshasa, naming himself president and reverting the name of the country to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Kabila later requested that foreign military forces return to their own countries. Rwandan troops retreated to Goma and launched a new Tutsi-led rebel military movement called the Rally for Congolese Democracy to fight Kabila, while Uganda instigated the creation of a rebel movement called the Movement for the Liberation of the Congo, led by Congolese warlord Jean-Pierre Bemba. The two rebel movements, along with Rwandan and Ugandan troops, started the Second Congo War by attacking the Congolese army in 1998. Angolan, Zimbabwean, and Namibian troops entered the war on the side of the Congolese government.

Kabila was assassinated in 2001. His son Joseph Kabila succeeded him and called for multilateral peace talks. UN peacekeepers, then known as MONUC and now known as MONUSCO, arrived in April 2001. From 2002 to 2003, Bemba intervened in the Central African Republic on behalf of its then president, Ange-Félix Patassé. Talks led to a peace accord under which Kabila would share power with former rebels, implemented between 2002 and 2003. The most widely reported estimate for the death toll during the Second Congo War is 5.4 million people, though other estimates put it at 3 million. It has been described as the deadliest conflict since World War II.

By June 2003 all foreign armies except those of Rwanda had pulled out of the Congo. A transitional government was set up until an election was held. A constitution was approved by voters; further, on 30 July 2006, DRC held its first multi-party elections. These were the first free national elections since 1960, which many believed would mark the end to violence in the region. However, an election-result dispute between Kabila and Bemba turned into a skirmish between their supporters in Kinshasa. MONUC took control of the city. The second round of the election took place in October 2006, which Kabila won, and in December 2006 he was sworn in as president.

Laurent Nkunda, a member of Rally for Congolese Democracy–Goma, defected along with troops loyal to him and formed the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP), which began an armed rebellion against the government. In March 2009, after a deal between the DRC and Rwanda, Rwandan troops entered the DRC and arrested Nkunda and were allowed to pursue FDLR militants. The CNDP signed a peace treaty with the government in which it agreed to become a political party and to have its soldiers integrated into the national army in exchange for the release of its imprisoned members. In 2012 Bosco Ntaganda, the leader of the CNDP, and troops loyal to him, mutinied and briefly captured the provincial capital of Goma in November 2012.

Neighboring countries have been accused of arming rebel groups and using them as proxies to gain control of the resource-rich country. In March 2013, the United Nations Security Council authorized the United Nations Force Intervention Brigade to neutralize armed groups. In 2013, the Mai-Mai created by Laurent Kabila briefly invaded the provincial capital of Lubumbashi and 400,000 people are displaced in the province as of 2013. On and off fighting in the Ituri conflict occurred between the Nationalist and Integrationist Front and the Union of Congolese Patriots. In the northeast, Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army moved from their original bases in Uganda and South Sudan to DR Congo in 2005 and set up camps in the Garamba National Park.

In 2015, major protests broke out across the country and protesters demanded that Kabila step down as president. On 27 November 2016 Congolese foreign minister Raymond Tshibanda told the press no elections would be held in 2016: "it has been decided that the voter registration operation will end on July 31, 2017, and that election will take place in April 2018". Protests broke out in the country on 20 December when Kabila's term in office ended. Across the country, dozens of protesters were killed and hundreds were arrested.

Human Rights Watch said in 2017 that Kabila recruited former 23 March Movement fighters to put down country-wide protests over his refusal to step down from office at the end of his term. "M23 fighters patrolled the streets of the Congo's main cities, firing on or arresting protesters or anyone else deemed to be a threat to the president", they said. Fierce fighting has erupted in Masisi between government forces and a powerful local warlord, General Delta. The United Nations mission in the DRC is its largest and most expensive peacekeeping effort, but it shut down five UN bases near Masisi in 2017, after the U.S. led a push to cut costs.

On 30 December 2018, a general election was held. The election was originally scheduled for 23 December, but was postponed after a warehouse fire destroyed several electronic voting machines, prompting concerns about potential tampering. Polling eventually opened on 30 December across most of the country, though voting remained suspended in certain areas—a measure officials said was intended to protect residents from an ongoing Ebola outbreak in eastern provinces.

After polls closed, the government imposed an internet blackout in some regions, announcing that service would be restored following the release of results, which had been slated for 6 January.

On 10 January 2019, the electoral commission announced opposition candidate Félix Tshisekedi as the winner of the presidential vote, and he was officially sworn in as president on 24 January. However, there were widespread suspicions that the results were rigged and that a deal had been made between Tshisekedi and Kabila, as professional election polls carried out on election day found that Martin Fayulu, the leading opposition candidate, was expected to take 47% of the vote, compared to 23% for Felix Tshisekedi and 19% for Emmanuel Shadary, Kabila's hand-picked successor.

In August 2019, six months after the inauguration of Félix Tshisekedi, a coalition government was announced. Tshisekedi succeeded in strengthening his hold on power, gaining the support of almost 400 out of 500 members of the National Assembly, the pro-Kabila speakers of both houses of parliament being forced out. In April 2021, the new government was formed without the supporters of Kabila.

A major measles outbreak in the country left nearly 5,000 dead in 2019. The Ebola outbreak ended in June 2020, after causing 2,280 deaths over two years. The COVID-19 pandemic also reached the DRC in March 2020, with a vaccination campaign beginning on 19 April 2021. The Italian ambassador to the DRC, Luca Attanasio, and his bodyguard were killed in North Kivu on 22 February 2021. On 22 April 2021, meetings between Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and Tshisekedi resulted in new agreements increasing international trade and security (counterterrorism, immigration, cyber security, and customs) between the two countries. In February 2022, allegations of a coup d'état in the country led to uncertainty, but the coup attempt failed. In December 2023, President Felix Tshisekedi won reelection with more than 70% of the vote.

The M23 Movement had a resurgence in 2022 and received military assistance from Rwanda, which accused the Congolese government of supporting the FDLR Hutu militia. In early 2025, the conflict escalated with the M23 capture of Goma and Bukavu, involving thousands of Rwandan troops. Peace negotiations between Rwanda and the DRC brokered by the United States took place in the spring of 2025, and culminated in the signing of a peace deal on 27 June 2025. The peace agreement calls for the withdrawal of Rwandan troops from eastern Congo within 90 days and the end of the DRC's support for the FDLR, along with the creation of a regional economic integration framework for the two countries.

Despite the treaty, the United Nations Humans Rights Office (UNHRO) found that hostilities in the provinces where Goma and Bukavu are located, increased during the period from January to July 2025. UNHRO found that M23, along with the occupying Rwandan Defense Force (RDF) soldiers allegedly massacred hundreds of civilians in four villages within Rutshuru, a region within North Kivu province. In July 2025, a Declaration of Principles was signed in Doha as a first agreement on shared objectives for a ceasefire, and to limit future violence in the conflict. In October 2025, former president Joseph Kabila was sentenced to death in absentia for alleged collaboration with the rebel group M23.

The DRC is located in central sub-Saharan Africa, bordered to the northwest by the Republic of the Congo, to the north by the Central African Republic, to the northeast by South Sudan, to the east by Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi, and by Tanzania (across Lake Tanganyika), to the south and southeast by Zambia, to the southwest by Angola, and to the west by the South Atlantic Ocean and the Cabinda exclave of Angola. The DRC lies between latitudes 6°N and 14°S, and longitudes 12°E and 32°E. It straddles the Equator, with one-third to the north and two-thirds to the south. With an area of 2,345,408 square kilometres (905,567 sq mi), it is the second-largest country in Africa by area, after Algeria.

As a result of its equatorial location, the DRC has high precipitation and has the highest frequency of thunderstorms in the world. The annual rainfall can total upwards of 2,000 millimetres (80 in) in some places. The DRC sustains the Congo rainforest, the second-largest rainforest in the world after the Amazon rainforest. This massive expanse of lush jungle covers most of the vast, low-lying central basin of the river, which slopes toward the Atlantic Ocean in the west. This area is surrounded by plateaus merging into savannas in the south and southwest, by mountainous terraces in the west, and dense grasslands extending beyond the Congo River in the north. The glaciated Rwenzori Mountains are found in the extreme eastern region.

The tropical climate produced the Congo River system which dominates the region topographically along with the rainforest it flows through. The Congo Basin occupies nearly the entire country and an area of nearly 1,000,000 km2 (390,000 sq mi). The river and its tributaries form the backbone of Congolese economics and transportation. Major tributaries include the Kasai, Sangha, Ubangi, Ruzizi, Aruwimi, and Lulonga.

The Congo River has the second-largest flow and the second-largest watershed of any river in the world, behind the Amazon in both respects. The sources of the Congo River are in the Albertine Rift Mountains that flank the western branch of the East African Rift, as well as Lake Tanganyika and Lake Mweru. The river flows generally west from Kisangani just below Boyoma Falls, then gradually bends southwest, passing by Mbandaka, joining with the Ubangi River, and running into the Pool Malebo (Stanley Pool). Kinshasa and Brazzaville are on opposite sides of the river at the Pool. Then the river narrows and falls through a number of cataracts in deep canyons, collectively known as the Livingstone Falls, and runs past Boma into the Atlantic Ocean. The river and a 37-kilometre-wide (23 mi) strip of coastline on its north bank provide the country's only outlet to the Atlantic.

The Albertine Rift plays a key role in shaping the Congo's geography. The northeastern section of the country much more mountainous. Tectonic movement results in volcanic activity, occasionally with loss of life. The geologic activity in this area created the African Great Lakes, four of which lie on the Congo's eastern frontier: Lake Albert, Lake Kivu, Lake Edward, and Lake Tanganyika.

The rift valley has exposed an enormous amount of mineral wealth throughout the south and east of the Congo, making it accessible to mining. Cobalt, copper, cadmium, industrial and gem-quality diamonds, gold, silver, zinc, manganese, tin, germanium, uranium, radium, bauxite, iron ore, and coal are all found in plentiful supply, especially in the Congo's southeastern Katanga region. The gold production in 2015 was 37 metric tonnes.

On 17 January 2002, Mount Nyiragongo erupted, with three streams of extremely fluid lava running out at 64 km/h (40 mph) and 46 m (50 yd) wide. One of the three streams flowed directly through Goma, killing 45 people and leaving 120,000 homeless. Over 400,000 people were evacuated from the city during the eruption. The lava flowed into and poisoned the water of Lake Kivu killing its plants, animals and fish. Only two planes left the local airport because of the possibility of the explosion of stored petrol. The lava flowed through and past the airport, destroying a runway and trapping several parked airplanes. Six months after the event, nearby Mount Nyamuragira also erupted. The mountain erupted again in 2006, and in January 2010.

=== Biodiversity and conservation ===

The rainforests of the Democratic Republic of the Congo are the second-largest in the world, spanning 155 million hectares, and contain great biodiversity. There are over 10,000 animal species, including many rare and endemic ones, such as the common chimpanzee and the bonobo, the African forest elephant, mountain gorilla, okapi, forest buffalo, leopard and, further south in the country, the southern white rhinoceros. Five of the country's national parks are listed as World Heritage Sites: the Garumba, Kahuzi-Biega, Salonga and Virunga National Parks, and the Okapi Wildlife Reserve. the Democratic Republic of the Congo is one of 17 Megadiverse countries and is the most biodiverse African country.

Conservationists have particularly worried about primates. The Congo is inhabited by several great ape species: the common chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes), the bonobo (Pan paniscus), the eastern gorilla (Gorilla beringei), and possibly a population of the western gorilla (Gorilla gorilla). It is the only country in the world in which bonobos are found in the wild. Much concern has been raised about great ape extinction. Because of hunting and habitat destruction, the numbers of chimpanzee, bonobo and gorilla (each of whose populations once numbered in the millions) have now dwindled down to only about 200,000 gorillas, 100,000 chimpanzees and possibly only about 10,000 bonobos. The gorillas, chimpanzee, bonobo, and okapi are all classified as endangered by the World Conservation Union.

Major environmental issues in DRC include deforestation, poaching, which threatens wildlife populations, water pollution and mining. From 2015 to 2019, the rate of deforestation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo doubled. In 2021, deforestation of the Congolian rainforests increased by 5%. In 2023, the rate of deforestation in the DRC was the highest in Africa. The causes include slash-and-burn agriculture and illegal logging.

In January 2025, the DRC government established the Kivu-Kinshasa Green Corridor an initiative whose stated aim was to protect a large portion of the Congo Basin forest while supporting sustainable economic development.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo is, constitutionally, a unitary and semi-presidential republic in which the president is the head of state, elected by universal suffrage to a term of five years. The prime minister is the head of government appointed by the president with the support of the parliament. The prime minister and the cabinet, known as the government, are responsible to the legislature rather than to the president. The parliament is a bicameral legislature consisting of the Senate and the National Assembly.

Deputies of the National Assembly are directly elected for a term of five years. Senators are elected indirectly by provincial legislatures, also for a term of five years. The president is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces and appoints government and military officials. The constitution is the basis for an independent judiciary, consisting of the Constitutional Court to evaluate the constitutionality of laws and to settle disputes regarding elections or the separation of powers; the Court of Cassation as the court of last resort in the civil and military judicial system; and the Council of State as the highest administrative court.

The DRC's political system is considered to be authoritarian and scores low on rankings of democracy, political rights, and civil liberties. Despite the constitution providing for the separation of executive, legislative, and judicial powers, in practice the president and his associates have dominated the political system. Freedom House rates the country as "not free" in 2025, citing endemic corruption, the manipulation of the political system, and human rights abuses, including by security forces. The Economist Democracy Index described the DRC as an "authoritarian regime" in 2024, ranking it 156 out of the 167 countries that it evaluated.

The DRC was ranked 163 out of 180 countries in the Corruption Perceptions Index for 2024. Administrative institutions remain weak, especially in rural areas, undermining the ability of government to provide basic services to the population. The state has also struggled to extend its administration over the country's entire territory. The Fragile States Index ranked the DRC the 5th most fragile country in the world, out of 179 countries, as of 2024.

During the presidency of Joseph Kabila from 2001 to 2019, the government was marked by corruption, a lack of transparency, and human rights violations. Kabila remained in office beyond his constitutional mandate, which ended in 2016, by delaying an election. After it was held in late 2018, Kabila was succeeded by Félix Tshisekedi in the DRC's first peaceful transition of power since independence. The election is widely seen as having been rigged in a deal made between Kabila and Tshisekedi. Tshisekedi was reelected in late 2023, and after negotiations appointed Judith Suminwa as prime minister in 2024, the first woman to hold the post.

The current political system is known as the Third Republic, declared by Laurent-Désiré Kabila at his presidential inauguration in May 1997. Apart from changing the country's name from Zaire back to the DR Congo and restoring its previous symbols, Kabila's government made few changes from the dictatorship of Mobutu Sese Seko. After the Second Congo War (1998–2003), during which Laurent-Désiré Kabila was assassinated, a transitional constitution was adopted in April 2003 as part of the peace process. It was replaced by the current constitution, the Constitution of the Third Republic, which went into effect in February 2006. The current flag was also adopted.

The Transitional Government, led by Joseph Kabila, oversaw the creation of the current system: the first cabinet took office in June 2003, the two chambers of the parliament were organized in July 2003, a constitution was adopted by a referendum in December 2005, and the country's first free election in over four decades was held in July 2006. Since the process of democratization began in 1990, more than 600 registered political parties emerged in the DRC. Four of them—the UDPS, PPRD, UNC, and MLC—successfully operate across the entire country.

The DRC is divided into the city-province of Kinshasa and 25 provinces. The provinces are subdivided into 145 territories and 33 cities.

There are economic and strategic incentives (for external countries) to bring more "security" to the Congo, which is rich in natural resources such as cobalt, a metal used in many industrial and military applications. The country possesses 80% of the world's cobalt reserves.

It is thought that due to the importance of cobalt for batteries for electric vehicles and stabilization of electric grids with large proportions of intermittent renewables in the electricity mix, the DRC could become an object of increased geopolitical competition.

In the 21st century, Chinese investment in the DRC and Congolese exports to China have grown rapidly. In July 2019, UN ambassadors of 37 countries, including DRC, have signed a joint letter to the UNHRC defending China's treatment of Uyghurs and other Muslim ethnic minorities. In 2021, President Félix Tshisekedi called for a review of mining contracts signed with China by his predecessor Joseph Kabila, in particular the Sicomines multibillion 'minerals-for-infrastructure' deal.

Although located in the Central African UN subregion, the nation is also economically and regionally affiliated with Southern Africa as a member of the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

The military of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, known as the FARDC, consists of the Land Forces, the Air Force, and the Navy. There is also a separate Republican Guard that is outside of the FARDC command structure, being directly responsible to the president. In 2023 there were 103,000 soldiers in the Land Forces, 6,700 in the Navy, 2,550 in the Air Force, 14,000 in the central command, and 8,000 in the Republican Guard. All services together numbered 134,250 personnel, nominally making the FARDC the largest military in Central Africa. However, the FARDC has been undermined by low levels of professionalism, training, morale, pay, and equipment, along with rampant corruption. Its lack of vehicles and aircraft makes it difficult to move troops across the country's large territory.

The FARDC was established in 2003 after the end of the Second Congo War with the integration of many former rebel groups into its ranks, and it still works with pro-government militias. Since then it has been a diverse combination of the former Zairian armed forces, rebel groups from the Congo Wars, and other militias that were integrated more recently. President Félix Tshisekedi announced the beginning of military reforms in 2022 to create a more cohesive national army. This effort included replacing most of the high command with younger officers that had a record of success and providing more military spending for the years between 2022 and 2024. Despite this, the FARDC continues to be disorganized and has systematic corruption, preventing it from fulfilling its mission to effectively defend the country's entire territory.

The armed forces are organized into geographic joint commands known as defense zones, one each for the western, south-central, and eastern DRC, which are further divided into military regions. The Land Forces consist of brigades. In 2011, those in Eastern Congo were reorganized into regiments. In 2023, it was estimated that there are nine brigades, 27 regiments, one artillery battalion, and one military police battalion. Many units are reported to be at half of their official strength or less because of combat losses and desertions. The FARDC has spent decades fighting against over 100 armed groups in Eastern Congo and the Kasaï region, including local Mai-Mai militias, the Rwandan-backed 23 March Movement (M23), Nduma Defense of Congo-Renovated (NDC-R), the Allied Democratic Forces (which has become part of the Islamic State), and the Lord's Resistance Army.

The Congolese National Police, known as the PNC, are the primary police force in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The DRC has a civil law system primarily based on Belgian law, but also customary and tribal law. The country accepts the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, having ratified the Rome Statute on 11 April 2002. The Criminal Code, the Military Criminal Code, and the Code of Criminal Procedure were modified by the DRC's parliament on 31 December 2015 to be in compliance with the Rome Statute.

A relative of Mobutu explained how the government illicitly collected revenue during his rule: "Mobutu would ask one of us to go to the bank and take out a million. We'd go to an intermediary and tell him to get five million. He would go to the bank with Mobutu's authority and take out ten. Mobutu got one, and we took the other nine." Mobutu institutionalized corruption to prevent political rivals from challenging his control, leading to an economic collapse in 1996.

Mobutu allegedly amassed between US$50 million and $125 million during his rule. He was not the first corrupt Congolese leader by any means: "Government as a system of organized theft goes back to King Leopold II", noted Adam Hochschild in 2009. In July 2009, a Swiss court determined that the statute of limitations had run out on an international asset recovery case of about $6.7 million of deposits of Mobutu's in a Swiss bank, and therefore the assets should be returned to Mobutu's family.

President Kabila established the Commission of Repression of Economic Crimes upon his ascension to power in 2001. However, in 2016 the Enough Project issued a report claiming that the Congo is run as a violent kleptocracy.

In June 2020, a court in the Democratic Republic of the Congo found President Tshisekedi's chief of staff Vital Kamerhe guilty of corruption. He was sentenced to 20 years' hard labour, after facing charges of embezzling almost $50m (£39m) of public funds. He was the most high-profile figure to be convicted of corruption in the DRC. However, Kamerhe was released already in December 2021.

In November 2021, a judicial investigation targeting Kabila and his associates was opened in Kinshasa after revelations of alleged embezzlement of $138 million.