Emmanuel Weyi Aims to Change the Democratic Republic of Congo

It’s dif­fi­cult to write about the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Repub­lic of Con­go (DRC) with­out refer­ring to its unsta­ble and author­i­tar­i­an past. It’s a past that brings reminders about Patrice Lumum­ba, Mubu­tu Sesse Seko, Lau­rent-Desire Kabi­la, Bel­gian col­o­niza­tion, and Zaire.

The tumul­tuous past remains a back­drop even as the coun­try charges for­ward in a new era of elec­tions and democracy.

This tra­jec­to­ry is akin to a stereo­type, a glass-half-emp­ty view of the country.

Buts it’s also appar­ent that the case of the DRC is the sym­bol­ism of the strug­gles reporters face with bal­anc­ing two sides of every sto­ry; what needs to be report­ed, most­ly neg­a­tive news in a cor­rupt­ed and dan­ger­ous world, and what prospects there are for improve­ments to occur with the sub­ject of a story.

Today the DRC faces a mon­u­men­tal elec­toral choice about who will lead the coun­try come the pres­i­den­tial elec­tions in Novem­ber 2016. That is, should the pow­ers that be leave the date unchanged.

Joseph Kabi­la, son of for­mer pres­i­dent Lau­rent Kabi­la, assas­si­nat­ed in 2001 in the process of the Sec­ond Con­go War, holds a frag­ile peace, with oppo­si­tion par­ties, civil­ians and the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty watch­ing for what moves he will make in his sec­ond term as pres­i­dent grad­u­al­ly runs out.

In Con­go: Is Demo­c­ra­t­ic Change pos­si­ble, the Inter­na­tion­al Cri­sis Group, con­cerned about the prospects for peace­ful elec­tions, sums up the sit­u­a­tion as follows:

“The pres­i­den­tial and leg­isla­tive polls sched­uled for 2016 are a poten­tial water­shed for the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Repub­lic of Con­go (DRC); they could be the first elec­tions held with­out an incum­bent pro­tect­ing his posi­tion. The prospect of these elec­tions is test­ing nerves on all sides of the Con­golese polit­i­cal spec­trum and has already caused deadly

vio­lence. There is an urgent need for Pres­i­dent Joseph Kabi­la to com­mit to the two-term lim­it con­tained with­in the con­sti­tu­tion and ready him­self to leave power.”

The cur­rent con­sti­tu­tion, enact­ed in 2006, bars the incum­bent from seek­ing a third term. Yet, Kabi­la has giv­en no clear indi­ca­tion that he will leave when his man­date expires.

The process of democ­ra­ti­za­tion in the DRC, would not be with­out the par­tic­i­pa­tion of oppo­si­tion par­ties and its cit­i­zens in the process. In the midst of all this, the most­ly French-speak­ing coun­try, the sec­ond-largest in Africa and the 11^th largest in the world, is going ahead with the cre­ation of new provinces, as well as revi­sions to its elec­toral laws.

The oppo­si­tion, which the Cri­sis Group describes as “dis­joint­ed”, “is inca­pable of form­ing a unit­ed front, but there is a broad agree­ment to oppose any polit­i­cal maneu­ver­ing to extend Pres­i­dent Kabila’s rule beyond 2016. In addi­tion to Pres­i­dent Kabila’s ambigu­ous sig­nals about whether he will respect his two-term lim­it, prob­lems expe­ri­enced dur­ing the 2011 elec­tions remain; they include a lack of con­fi­dence in the Inde­pen­dent Nation­al Elec­toral Com­mis­sion (CENI) and a dis­put­ed vot­er list.”

In Den­ver, Col­orado, resides busi­ness­man, Emmanuel Weyi, who is aim­ing to be the next pres­i­dent of the DRC. As an oppo­si­tion can­di­date, Weyi and his “Stand by Me” cam­paign say they want to bring change to the DRC.

We first heard about the can­di­date after he gave an inter­view to Col­orado Pub­lic Radio in June, stat­ing his plans to be that per­son to replace Kabi­la at the helm of the DRC.

He’s been going around to places like the Uni­ver­si­ty of Den­ver,  the Col­orado Governor’s Man­sion, and Wash­ing­ton D.C., speak­ing with peo­ple and rais­ing mon­ey to help in his pur­suit of the pres­i­den­cy of the DRC.

We sat down for a con­ver­sa­tion with Weyi to talk about the U.S. pres­i­den­tial elec­tions, the DRC elec­tions, U.S.-Africa rela­tions, and much more. In our inter­view (see video footage) he expand­ed on his plan for the DRC.

“Most of the peo­ple in the Con­go, even the gov­ern­ment, the pres­i­dent, or peo­ple just vis­it­ing the Con­go, they see prob­lems. As a busi­ness­man, I see oppor­tu­ni­ties,” he says.

The cen­tral­ly locat­ed African coun­try is home to a pop­u­la­tion of about 70 mil­lion peo­ple. While the DRC is not eli­gi­ble under the cur­rent Africa Growth and Oppor­tu­ni­ty Act(AGOA) agree­ments for 2015, accord­ing to the Unit­ed States Trade Rep­re­sen­ta­tive, the coun­try is cur­rent­ly the 144th largest goods trad­ing part­ner with $245 mil­lion in total trade in 2013. The bulk of this con­sists in oil and min­er­als, accord­ing to the U.S. Depart­ment of State.

With his many years of expe­ri­ence in busi­ness, Weyi promis­es to bring the DRC back to the sta­ble coun­try that it was. He says one of his plans is to cre­ate jobs and open oppor­tu­ni­ties for those in need. As a busi­ness­man, he says in 2003 he start­ed a Fair Trade min­ing com­pa­ny, Weyi Group Inter­na­tion­al, in the DRC, to do busi­ness with the Unit­ed States.

Weyi states that for the last five years, the peo­ple of the DRC have been suf­fer­ing, which is one main rea­son he is run­ning for the pres­i­den­cy. With a his­to­ry of con­flict, the coun­try cur­rent­ly has about 430,000 refugees in neigh­bor­ing coun­tries such as Ugan­da, Burun­di, and Rwanda.

He respond­ed to our ques­tions about the DRC’s image, known as a place of rape and mass murders.

He says one of his cam­paign plat­forms is to address how to put an end to attacks on women in the coun­try. A study pub­lished in the Amer­i­ca Jour­nal of Pub­lic Health found that women in the DRC are sub­ject­ed to sex­u­al attacks every minute in the coun­try. Weyi says he’ll focus on girls and women’s issues sep­a­rate­ly. By edu­cat­ing girls, this will open up a big­ger door for them to find greater paths.

“The rape in this coun­try is out of con­trol, there is no account­abil­i­ty, the peo­ple know that they just can’t go do a bad thing and go home; with­out nobody hold­ing them account­able, for me as a pres­i­dent you do wrong, I will hold you accountable.”

Speak­ing about the image of the African con­ti­nent which is tar­nished by the stream of bad news com­ing out of the coun­try, Weyi says he will address the issue by help­ing to build on the rela­tion­ship between Amer­i­ca and African coun­tries. He places part of the blame on African lead­ers, who he says; when they come to the Unit­ed States don’t do enough to speak about the good things which the con­ti­nent has to offer.

“I’m blam­ing all the African lead­ers, all the pres­i­dents, all the prime min­is­ters” he says. “They are not doing their dili­gence when they come to America.”

“What the Euro­peans brought to us was tech­nol­o­gy, we exist­ed before they came.” Africa has its own resources to live on but we lack the capa­bil­i­ties to see it and put them to good use. We need to get our sto­ry out there and show peo­ple, what the dif­fer­ent sto­ries are of Africa, not every per­son is wait­ing for the Unit­ed Nation to help them. The change starts with the lead­ers and Weyi promis­es to start that change in the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Repub­lic of Congo.

But there remains a big ques­tion that is haunt­ing Weyi’s cam­paign. It’s a fact and ques­tion about his abil­i­ty to com­pete in a cam­paign in a coun­try he does not live in all the time.

To this ques­tion, he answers by stat­ing, “I took 45% of my com­pa­ny back home and open offices downtown.”

He says for the past years he has spent at least six to sev­en months in the DRC, to give back and to see what peo­ple are fac­ing day in and out.

Edi­tor’s Note: George Bamu con­tributed to the report­ing on this story.