I've a sandbox environment with 2 CentOS 6.2 servers running the genuine openldap-servers rpms, that is OpenLDAP 2.4.23 . I've setup a multi-master replication between the servers, so that both my data DIT (dc=....,dc=.... ) and the cn=config should be replicated.
Sounds to me like the files in the cn=config tree are owned by a user other than the user openldap is running as. I suggest you check the directory/file permissions on that server.
And if you want to have working MMR, I suggest you upgrade to OpenLDAP 2.4.31.
--Quanah -- Quanah Gibson-Mount Sr. Member of Technical Staff Zimbra, Inc A Division of VMware, Inc. -------------------- Zimbra :: the leader in open source messaging and collaboration