Joseph Kabila Kabange (/kæˈbiːlə/ kab-EE-lə, French: [ʒozɛf kabila]; born 4 June 1971) is a Congolese politician and former military officer who was the fourth President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 2001 to 2019. He took office ten days after the assassination of his father, President Laurent-Désiré Kabila, in the context of the Second Congo War. He was allowed to remain in power as the president of the new transitional government after the 2002 peace agreements ended the war. Kabila founded the People's Party for Reconstruction and Democracy (PPRD) and was elected president in 2006. He was re-elected for a second term in 2011. Since stepping down after the 2018 election, Kabila, as a former president, is a senator for life. Kabila was the country's second-longest serving president.
Kabila was born in Hewa Bora II, a village in the present-day South Kivu Province of the eastern DRC. His father, Laurent-Désiré Kabila, lived in isolation while leading a dissident movement against the dictator Mobutu Sese Seko. The younger Kabila later received education and military training in Tanzania and Uganda. He studied at Makerere University before the First Congo War broke out in 1996. His father was a founding member of the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire (AFDL) with Rwandan backing to overthrow Mobutu. Joseph Kabila participated in the war, which ended with his father becoming the president, and afterwards was sent to the PLA National Defense University in China. He was appointed as the deputy chief of staff of the Congolese Armed Forces, and after returning from China, was briefly the chief of staff in 1998, at the outbreak of the Second Congo War. In 2000, he became the chief of staff of the Land Forces.