Today, the main newspaper headlines in Kinshasa are related to Tuesday's nomination, by the head of state, of Antoine Gizenga as Informant.

Le Potentiel notes: "Yesterday, DR Congo's President Joseph Kabila, in accordance with article 78 of the country's Constitution, nominated Antoine Gizenga as Informant." This means that Gizenga, head of the Unified Lumumbist Party (PALU, Parti Lumumbiste Unifié) and a key Kabila ally in the just completed runoff presidential election is "in charge of identifying, in the National Assembly, the coalition of political parties and groupings able to form a parliamentary majority from which the head of state will nominate the Prime Minister".

Le Phare writes: "By nominating [Gizenga], the President remains faithful to the commitments he made during the period between the two rounds of the presidential election, while affirming his authority and taking things in hand as he seeks to put an end to the restlessness which seems to have prevailed within the coalition that supports him". "The task appears immense and delicate for [Gizenga] who will have to summon all of his moral and intellectual resources to calm the ambitions of some," according to the paper.

"The nomination of Antoine Gizenga as Informant brings an end to several days of suspense among the population," notes L'Observateur, saying: "Today, contrary to rumours about alleged differences between the AMP [Kabila's Presidential Majority Alliance] and PALU, one is obliged to recognise that the two partners are rather in perfect agreement."

"The speculations about the formation of a new government for the Third Republic are proven useless," writes L'Avenir, holding that "Antoine Gizenga's task is facilitated by the preparatory work the [Presidential Majority Alliance] coalition has done during throughout this waiting time."

"The leader of PALU has been assigned the job to identify the [parliamentary] majority coalition," reports La Tempête des Tropiques, noting that "for several days now, PALU activists have been looking after the security of Antoine Gizenga."

In a related story headlined "A presidential statement sews confusion in Kinshasa", La Référence Plus, citing concordant sources, writes: "Despite this move by the President's Cabinet, there still seems to be some confusion at the top of the power structure." Wondering if "Gizenga is informant or prime minister," the paper goes on saying: "The battle for the key position of prime minister is still stiff within the AMP coalition where the ambitions of Vital Kamerhe (of the PPRD party), Olivier Kamitatu (CRP) and Antoine Gizenga (PALU) are hard to reconcile".

In other news, Le Potentiel warns: "In the absence of a state budget for 2007, the Third Republic is left open to plunder". "Undoubtedly, the great unknown of this Third Republic is -and will remain- the budget equation," writes the paper, asking: "What type of budget is this which will centralise all state financial operations while the outgoing 1+4 power structure left no such documentation for use by the new Republic?"