Joseph Kasongo

Patrice Lumumba (centre) and Kasongo (right, wearing hat) at the Round Table Conference

Joseph Kasongo was born on 25 December 1919 in Dar es Salaam, Tanganyika. His family was part of the Kusu tribe of the Tetela ethnic group and came from Kibombo, Maniema, Belgian Congo. They were practicing Muslims. He conducted three years of business studies and four years of legal studies. Afterwards he worked as a businessman and a defender in the indigenous courts of Stanleyville, Belgian Congo. Around 1950 he served as president of the Élisabethville chapter of the Association des Batetela. Kasongo eventually became vice president of the Mouvement National Congolais (MNC) party. He was a firm supporter of anti-clericalism.

A wave of political unrest in 1959 caused the Belgian government to arrange a Round Table Conference in Brussels to discuss independence. Kasongo was invited to attend as a delegate for the MNC but threatened to boycott the conference unless party leader Patrice Lumumba was released from prison and allowed to go as well. The Belgian government eventually gave in and both attended the conference.

Parliamentary career

Kasongo won in the country's first national elections in May 1960 as a member of the MNC and gained a seat in the Chamber of Deputies as a representative from Orientale Province. On 21 June the Chamber selected him to be its first president, beating Jean Bolikango in a vote 74 to 58. He presided over the joint-session of Parliament that elected the Congo's first head of state and the country's formal independence ceremony that took place on 30 June 1960 at the Palais de la Nation, which included Lumumba (by then prime minister)'s controversial Congolese Independence Speech. Kasongo also served as the chairman of the Chamber's constitutional commission. On 9 July he went to Stanleyville to assist in overseeing the Africanisation of the local army garrison. Later that month he traveled with Lumumba to the Headquarters of the United Nations in the United States. Following the establishment of the United Nations Operation in the Congo, Kasongo became a member of the parliamentary commission charged with overseeing relations between it and the government.

In early September the president of the Congo, Joseph Kasa-Vubu, fired Lumumba. Kasongo played a key role in attempting to reconcile the two to avoid a political impasse. On 7 September he became a member of an "arbitration commission" established by Parliament to mediate the dispute. Following Lumumba's complete removal from power, Kasongo reached an agreement in mid-December to work under the new leadership of Joseph Iléo. However, by January Colonel Joseph Mobutu's government of commissioners was dissolving due to financial problems. Kasongo angrily demanded that Lumumba be restored to the premiership. Proposals were made to have the dispute over governance settled in a round table discussion, and Kasongo rejected the idea and demanded for Parliament's powers to be restored. Regardless, he participated in the Round Table Conference of Léopolville in January 1961.

In mid-February the United Nations established a program by which potential political targets could seek military protection in designated facilities. Kasongo was the first person to accommodate himself in the service. Deputy Prime Minister Bolikango personally requested him to return to his residence under government protection, but Kasongo chose to remain with his family in a guarded facility. In July 1961 Kasongo was reelected to be president of the Chamber of Deputies at the Lovanium Conclave. He served in the role until March 1962.

In April 1963 Kasongo was made deputy prime minister with the economic coordination portfolio under Adoula's new government. That same month the MNC central committee, under the control of radical Christophe Gbenye, ejected Kasongo from the party. Kasongo subsequently formed his own wing of the MNC. On 24 January 1966 he was coopted by the Maniema provincial assembly to serve in the Senate on the province's behalf.