Nairobi, April 6 -- When it was first reported that rhumba maestro Koffi Olomide had thrown his hat into the political ring, many treated it as an April Fool's Day stunt around the continent. The first burst of the news out of the Democratic Republic of Congo startled millions of his fans. It's an ambition that the crooner has harboured for more than a decade but failed to attract the powers that be.

Koffi, 67, whose real name is Antoine Agbepa, is due to run in Sud-Ubangi Province in the April 22 polls on an AFDC-A party ticket. He is a member of Bahati Lukwebo's AFDC-A, which is one of the parties in President Felix Tshisekedi's ruling coalition.

In the musician's favour, the president had already appointed him ambassador of Congolese...