Former Belgian Provincial Deputy in charge of Economy, Agriculture, Tourism, Education Isabelle Kibassa-Maliba is eying the role of Governor in Lualaba on the ruling party ticket, UDPS.
Isabelle, notorious for her role in the RAM (a controversial levy on mobile talk-time), is married to President Felix Tshisekedi’s elder brother, Jean Claude.
She is daughter of one of the co-founders of UDPS, Frederic Kibassa Maliba, who had worked with the late Etienne Tshisekedi. Isabelle’s brother, Augustin Kibasa-Maliba, is a close confidant of the president.
Controversy is brewing in the ruling party over Isabelle’s aspirations in Lualaba where she will have to come up against convicted warlord Jean Pierre Bemba’s ex-mistress, Fifi Masuka – the current governor of the copper rich province.
