The Northern Ubangi province’s governor is the grandson of Mobutu Sese Seko, the former leader of Zaire, which is now the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Malo Ndimba Mobutu received 11 of the 18 votes cast by regional MPs in Gbadolite, which serves as both the provincial capital and the Mobutu family’s ancestral home.
Izato Nzege Koloke, who resigned in December of last year after having a disagreement with provincial MPs, is replaced by the 40-year-old.
Small hamlet Gbadolite in northern DR Congo’s extensive forests boomed under Mobutu’s rule he constructed there multiple palaces and an international airport but has since struggled.
Grandfather Malo Ndimba Mobutu governed the country with an iron grip from 1965 until 1997, when he left as rebels under Laurent Kabila moved on Kinshasa.
Critics accused the former president of being a cruel and unscrupulous leader who suppressed internal dissent and looted the nation’s mineral resources until he passed away at age 66, barely months after he was banished.
The current unrest in the mineral-rich country is a result of his autocratic reign, according to Filip Reyntjens, an expert on the Great Lakes region of Africa, who spoke to newsmen.
He claimed that since the early 1970s, the country had been destroyed to the point where it could no longer fulfill its basic obligations.
According to local media, Mobutu’s grandson reflects a fresh vision for his native province.
