- Banyingela Kasonga
Banyingela Kasonga (born
May 4 ,1959 ), is apriest and a candidate of the Alliance des Paysans et Ecologistes (the Alliance of Farmers and Ecologists) for the presidentialelections in the Democratic Republic of the Congo ofJuly 30 ,2006 .Biography
Banyingela Kasonga was born in Dimbelenge in the
Kasai-Occidental province of theDemocratic Republic of the Congo . From 1974 to 1978 he studied at the small seminary of Kabwe, in the section Latin and philosophy. After that, he went to the big seminary of Kabwe and in 1981 he enrolled for the study oftheology at the ‘Faculté de Théologie Catholique de Kinshasa’. OnSeptember 29 ,1985 he became ordained as a priest inKananga . Till 1988 he was then avicar in theparish of Notre Dame de Kananga. From 1988 till 1994 he was director of thePius X school inKananga . In 1994 he became the director of the Small Seminary in Kabwe, where he himself had studied as a child. In 1996 he went back toKinshasa to pursue his studies, where he would get a License in Theology (1997), and then a degree of higher studies in Theology (1999). Between 2000 and 2006 he was writing hisPh.D. dissertation at the faculty of Theology of theKatholieke Universiteit Leuven inBelgium .Politics
Already in his early priesthood days Banyingela was active in the promotion of social justice. For instance, in 1993 he was among the priests who fought against the introduction of a new currency what was then called
Zairean zaire . As a result theKasai region used for some time a different currency as the remainder of the country. As a long time supporter of theAlliance of Farmers and Ecologists , which was founded in 1990, Banyingela became its vice-president in 2005. In 2006 he was nominated as their candidate for the presidential elections.In the presidential elections of 2006 he ended 14th out of the 33 candidates with 0.48 percent of the vote, or else about 82000 votes nationwide.
References
* [http://www.demainlekasai.com/content/view/133/ Demain le Kasai]
* [http://www.kuleuven.ac.be/ck/2005_06/12/ck17-12-banyin.php Campuskrant]
* [http://www.cei-rdc.cd/IMG/pdf/RESULTATS_PROVISOIRES_PRESIDENTIELLE.pdf Provisional presidential election results]External links
* [http://www.banyingela.com/ Personal website of Banyingela Kasonga]
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