C. African Republic rebel leader faces challenges

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — Michel Djotodia showed up for peace talks a few months ago in camouflage and a turban as the face of Central African Republic's rebel movement. Now he has traded those fatigues for a suit as the country's new self-declared leader after overthrowing the president of a decade.

Djotodia, whose diverse resume includes studying in the former Soviet Union and working as a consul in Sudan's region of Darfur, initially signed on in January to serve as the defense minister in a unity government with his longtime nemesis, then President Francois Bozize.

But that power-sharing deal quickly fell apart. Only two months later, Djotodia's forces invaded the capital, and he declared himself president of the impoverished but mineral-rich country for at least the next three years.

Although Djotodia (pronounced joe-toe-DEE-uh) emerged as the dominant leader of the alliance of rag-tag fighters known as Seleka, which means alliance in the local Sango language, some of his colleagues are already saying they never intended for him to single-handedly lead the country after Bozize's ouster.

"We didn't battle to get rid of one dictator only to have another," says Nelson N'Djadder, a Paris-based rebel leader who is now threatening to fight Djotodia for leadership of a nation long plagued by coups and rebellions.

Djotodia, a 60-something longtime rebel, was once a civil servant under Bozize's predecessor and worked at the Central African Republic's consulate in Nyala, located in Sudan's South Darfur state. Recent developments come as little surprise to some observers.

"He has single-mindedly always wanted to be president of Central African Republic. He has been a tremendously ambitious man," said Alex Vines, head of the Africa program at Chatham House, a London-based institute on international affairs.

"In the end he had one vision, which was to take power and he has done that unconstitutionally now," Vines added.

Among a wide field of potential rebel leaders, he managed to position himself front and center, said Louisa Lombard, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Berkeley who has been traveling to Central African Republic for the past 10 years for research.

"I think he's mostly been successful through his diplomacy and negotiating alliances with different people and getting them on his side," she said. "It's a combination of being in the right place and having the right ambitions."

Djotodia hails from the country's northeastern Vakaga area, the poorest region of one of the world's most deeply impoverished countries. Analysts say he married and had children while living in the Soviet Union, and speaks fluent Russian and French.

By 2006 he had helped form the Union of Democratic Forces for Unity, known by its French acronym UFDR. His rebels sparked alarm when they seized the capitals of two northern provinces that year.

While the UFDR at the time "claimed to be fighting for greater government investment in the neglected northeast," its leaders seemed more interested in getting well-paying jobs within Bozize's government as part of a cease-fire agreement, according to a report by the International Crisis Group.

Djotodia later fled into exile in Benin in 2006 along with his colleague Abakar Saboune, where they were ultimately arrested and thrown into prison on international arrest warrants. He was released in 2008 at the request of the Central African Republic government, according to human rights groups.

It's not exactly clear where he was or what he was doing immediately after his release in Benin but after returning home, Djotodia spearheaded a rebel alliance that made partners out of sworn enemies.

His return to Central African Republic appears to have been a key factor in sparking the Seleka rebellion in December, say analysts and observers.

In an interview with Jeune Afrique magazine published the same week Bozize was overthrown, Bozize said he suspected foreign involvement in the rebellion.

"Six months before the launching of this rebellion, I sent a delegation to meet with (Djotodia) in his home city of Gordil," Bozize recalled. "He declared that he was in favor of peace and respecting the demobilization agreements. So I was quite surprised to see him launch this regrettable venture. Was he activated by external forces? It's probable."

Djotodia is believed to have cultivated ties with Chadian rebels while working in Sudan a decade ago. Those possible ties to elements in other countries and the shaky alliance between other fighters in the Seleka coalition could prove challenging, said Berkeley analyst Lombard: "I think it's likely that we'll see some struggles for control and power in the weeks to come."

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Associated Press writer Angela Charlton in Paris contributed to this report.

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China's new leadership faces myriad challenges

BEIJING (AP) — China named the Communist Party's No. 2 leader, Li Keqiang, premier on Friday as a long-orchestrated leadership transition nears its end, leaving the new leaders to confront uneven economic growth, unbridled corruption and a severely befouled environment that are stirring public discontent.

The rubber-stamp legislature endorsed Li for the post, voting 2,940 in favor with one opposed and six abstaining. A day earlier, the legislature similarly appointed Xi Jinping to the ceremonial post of president, making him China's pre-eminent leader following his ascent last November to head the Communist Party and the military.

Though the outcome of the legislative session was a foregone conclusion, it's the result of years of fractious behind-the-scenes bargaining. They hail from different factions: Li Keqiang (pronounced lee kuh chahng) is a protege of the now-retired President Hu Jintao while Xi Jinping (pronounced shee jin ping) is the son of a revolutionary veteran with backing among party elders.

After Li's selection was announced, he and Xi shook hands and smiled for photographers in the Great Hall of the People. Evidence of their and their patrons' ability to forge consensus will be seen Saturday when appointments to the Cabinet and other top government posts are announced.

The son of a revolutionary veteran, Xi cuts an authoritative figure with a confidence and congeniality that was lacking in his predecessor, the aloof and stiff Hu. New Premier Li, from a low level officials' household, has appeared to be a cautious administrator, like Hu, and has not been associated with particular policies on his rise.

Together, Xi and Li now steer a rising global power beset with many domestic challenges that will test their leadership. Chief among them are a sputtering economy that's overly dominated by powerful state industries.

Chinese leaders want to nurture self-sustaining growth based on domestic consumption and reducing reliance on exports and investment. Consumer spending is rising, but not as fast as Beijing wants, which has forced the government to support an economic recovery with spending on public works and investment by state companies.

"If the official data is to be believed, China has been moving in the wrong direction for the past decade - towards 'more investment, less consumption,'" wrote Standard Chartered economists Stephen Green and Wei Li in a research note. "This could create problems."

An increasingly vocal Chinese public is expressing impatience with the government's unfulfilled promises to curb abuses of power by local officials, better police the food supply and clean up the country's polluted rivers, air and soil.

"What do ordinary people care about? Food safety, and smog if you are in a big city, and official corruption," said the prominent Chinese author and social commentator Murong Xuecun, the pen name of author Hao Qun. "They just want to have a peaceful, stable and safe life. To have money and food, and live without worry of being tortured, or having their homes forcefully demolished."

"The entire country is watching for Xi's next step," the writer said.

Wu Xiangdong, chairman of a wine company in central Hunan province and one of the congress delegates who poured out of the vast, ornate Great Hall of the People after Friday's vote, said expectations also were high for Li, the new premier.

"We are very excited and look forward to the premier and the new generation of leaders to be better able to work on the economy, food safety, the environment and improving social equality," Wu said.

Xi's accession marks only the second orderly transfer of power in more than six decades of Communist Party rule. Underlining that transition, after the result of Thurday's vote was announced, the 59-year-old Xi bowed to delegates and turned to his predecessor, Hu. The two shook hands and posed for photos.

Governing China is often plodding as leaders, none of them politically strong enough to prevail individually, forge consensus with their colleagues in the collective leadership.

In some intriguing signs of the new leadership's direction, the congress on Friday appointed as supreme court president Zhou Qiang, a provincial party secretary with a reputation as a progressive and a former aide to a well-known legal reformer. On Thursday, another liberal-minded reformer and a close ally of Hu, Li Yuanchao, was named vice president, breaking with the practice of recent years because he is not in the party's seven-member ruling inner sanctum.

Early indications of the new government's priorities came in a policy program delivered during last week's opening of the legislative session. It pledged to clean up the country's environment, fight pervasive graft and official extravagance and improve welfare benefits for the poor.

The report promised to give private companies a fairer chance to compete, but did not say how Beijing would deal with big state companies controlling most of China's industries that economists have warned need to be curbed in order to preserve future growth. Many experts fear the government will be too hamstrung by powerful interest groups, linked to state industries, to be able to make these changes. But few doubt the urgency of the reform that's needed.

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Follow Gillian Wong on Twitter: http://twitter.com/gillianwong

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