Zaire the head of the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo (AFDL) militia, led a popular rebellion against Mobutu. With rebel forces successfully making gains beyond the east, Mobutu fled the country, leaving Kabila's forces in charge as the country restored its name to the Democratic Republic of the Congo the following year. Mobutu died within four months after he fled into exile in Morocco. The state's name, "Zaire" was derived from the name of the Congo River, sometimes called "Zaire" in Portuguese, adapted from the Kongo word "nzere" or "nzadi" ("river that swallows all rivers"). "Congo" seems
Constitution of Zaire president as President of Zaire itself with total power over government and judiciary (Articles 28 and 30). Mobutism was declared the state ideology (Article 46) and all Zaireans were automatically made members of the MPR (Article 8). Mobutu himself was exempted from the restrictions on power mentioned in the document and given the power to unilaterally modify the document at will. The state of Zaire's legal system as established by the constitution led Marcel Lihau, a jurist and former president of the Supreme Court of Justice who had fled the country, to remark that "Mobutu is the constitution in Zaire".