By Kudra Maliro
Marie-Josee Ifoku will be gunning for the DRC's presidential seat on December 20. She is the last woman standing after Joelle Bile announced her withdrawal from the race.
Ifoku was born in DRC's capital Kinshasa on February 6, 1965.
In 2018, she set her sights on the presidency, but came ninth out of 21 candidates, with 0.15% of the votes cast.
The 58-year-old, who served as the governor of the northwestern province of Tshuapa from October 2016 to October 2017, will be competing in the DRC presidential election for a second consecutive time.
Educated abroad
She is running under the Alliance of Elites for a New Congo political party ticket. Her competitors are at least 20 men, including the incumbent President Felix Tshisekedi, mining tycoon Moise Katumbi and 2018 election's first runner-up Martin Fayulu.
Ifoku, whose parents hail from Tshuapa Province, spent her childhood in Belgium and the Netherlands before returning to Kinshasa, where she completed her high school education.
For her university education, she went to France and later Canada. She holds a degree in business administration.
She worked in Canada at the Ford factory before returning to DRC in 2004. She was appointed as the sales lead for Congo Motors upon her return.
Need for 'reforms'
In 2015, she joined politics, becoming the governor of Tshuapa Province the following year.
She said she left her job in the private sector to join politics because she wanted to "make decisions" and "achieve reforms."
She uses a broom, known in the local Lingala dialect as "kombo" as her political symbol. The broom bears the colours of the Congolese national flag.
"The time has come for me to sweep clean, and put an end to the problem of mismanagement of state resources," she said.
'Time for a female president'
"It is time to abandon bad values and build a new DR-Congo based on morals and good governance."
Raymond Betua, a middle-aged man, says it is time the Congolese voters gave a woman a chance to lead the nation as president.
"Since 1960, men have ruled DRC, but none has brought significant change to the lives of the people. It is time we tried a female president. Maybe she would succeed where the men failed," Betua said.
Ifoku says she has "no fear at all", and is ready to face the men at the ballot box because she is "strong and a fighter."
'Right' person
"I am the right person to defend women, and the society. We have many problems in DRC, and I am the right person to serve as president because I have the solutions," Ifoku said.
The presidential candidate wonders why DRC, a country highly-rich in minerals, is still classified as a poor nation.
Besides promising to develop the nation, she says she will reconcile the communities in DRC, unify the different classes of people in the country and create jobs for the youth.
Ifoku suspects her 2018 display at the ballot box was poor because "I did not prepare well."
'Better prepared'
"I, nevertheless, got a platform to be seen and heard. I will use my experience from 2018 to run in this election, and I am better prepared now."
Ifoku is a mother of eight, and has three grandchildren.
