Former Congolese vice-president Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo, who is being tried at the International Criminal Court in The Hague on war crimes charges, will not contend Congo's upcoming presidential election.

The 48-year-old Bemba had declared from The Hague in late July that he intended to run in the election. "We do not have the authorisation from the ICC," (International Criminal Court) for Bemba to leave jail and file his candidacy with the Democratic Republic of Congo's electoral body, his Congo Liberation Movement (MLC) said.

MLC secretary general Thomas Luhaka also argued that the Congolese opposition needs to agree on a single candidate if it is to stand any chance of defeating incumbent President Joseph Kabila, who beat Bemba in a 2006 run-off. Candidates have until 11 September to formally file their papers with the polling commission.

Although Kabila has not yet made his reelection bid official, his candidacy is not in doubt and his campaign posters have already been plastered all over Kinshasa. Among those who have already declared their intention to challenge him are Union for Democracy and Social Progress leader Etienne Tshisekedi and Nzanga Mobutu, former dictator Mobutu Sese Seko's son. Nzanga Mobutu is married to one of Bemba's sisters.

Bemba's rise and fall
Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo was once a business tycoon, a warlord, a vice-president - and currently still has a seat in DR Congo’s senate. He is the most high profile war crimes suspect on trial at the ICC. Prosecutors say he bears responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the Central African Republic (CAR), whose citizens are closely following the controversial process.

Bemba stands trial for ordering his Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC) militia to rape, murder and plunder in the CAR. He got involved in the CAR in 2002 when President Ange-Félix Patassé asked him to help fight a rebellion by then-General François Bozizé. During the brutal conflict that unfolded all sides committed large-scale human rights violations against civilians. Bemba’s troops - better known in the CAR as Banyamulengue - left the country in March 2003. Bozizé took power after a coup while Pattasé went into exile in Togo.

While Central Africans hope that Bemba will be condemned, many wish that Bemba’s “accomplices” will also be judged by the ICC. “Bemba didn’t come to the CAR on his own,” they say. Until now, Bemba is the only person to go to trial for atrocities committed in the CAR. Human rights organisations have criticised ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo for only indicting Bemba and not going after Central African suspects. Critics have also called it a “missed opportunity” that court prosecutors did not charge Bemba with any crimes his MLC forces allegedly committed in the DRC’s Ituri region.

Bemba spent his childhood in Brussels, Kinshasa and the northern Congolese border town of Gbadolite. After studying business in Brussels, he soon managed to become one of the richest men in the DRC in the 1990s when he was former President Mobutu Sese Seko’s personal assistant. But following the 1997 takeover by Laurent-Désiré Kabila, the multi-millionaire fled to Uganda where President Yoweri Museveni helped him create his rebel group. In just a few months, the group captured and controlled parts of northern DRC during the 1998-2003 civil war and made Gbadolite its headquarters.

Arrest
Bemba laid down his weapons in 2003 and was elected one of the four vice-presidents within the Congolese transitional government until he put himself forward for the presidential election in 2006. He lost the run-off against Joseph Kabila but was elected senator in January 2007. Relations between him and Kabila soured, culminating in clashes between the army and Bemba’s militia later that year. Bemba fled to Portugal, and was arrested a year later in Brussels.

It took almost three years for the case to go to trial. Bemba’s lawyers contend that the case is politically motivated in order to remove him from future elections. They have tried to challenge the admissibility of the case, arguing that in 2004 a Bangui court decided not to start proceedings for the same crimes. ICC Appeals judges, however, last month paved the way for the trial to start citing orders from both Bangui’s Appeals Court and Court of Cassation who had ruled that the case should be referred to the ICC.