Painting by Cheri Samba

Lokuta eyaka na ascenseur, kasi vérité eyei na escalier mpe ekomi. Lies come up in the elevator; the truth takes the stairs but gets here eventually. - Koffi Olomide

Ésthetique eboma vélo. Aesthetics will kill a bicycle. - Felix Wazekwa

Friday, January 21, 2011

Videos of the main electoral contenders

A few recent interviews of Kamerhe, Tshisekedi and Kabila.

Kamerhe speaks on TeleSud for an hour about himself and Lula, Kabila's deal with Rwanda and how a parallel government runs the country.



Tshisekedi speaks on France 24 about how foreign countries imposed Kabila as winner in 2006 and how some still influence the country today; he also says that he will run in the election because he doesn't want to be accused again of sitting the elections out.



Finally, Kabila can be seen here giving his New Year's 2010/2011 speech. He says "all the fundamentals are in place," "the future has never been so bright," and mentions debt relief and the infrastructure rehabilitation.



For anyone who can get through all those, you are allowed to watch this gem: Bemba and Kabila ice-skating. I seem to remember that their duo in March 2007 in Kinshasa didn't go this well:

5 comments:

Colored Opinions said...

It's great to have Vital Kamerhe explain to the world and to the Congolese how Congolese politics works. At least he inreases our collective intelligence. Everyone who is interested in Congolese politics should start with this video.

Anonymous said...

These are great, thank you! It's a fab summary.

Unknown said...

Oh. My. God. THANK YOU for the figure skating video. I'm not even going to pretend I watched the other ones yet - though I do find their lengths, especially the 52 minutes of Kamerhe, very fitting.

Jason Stearns said...

@ Eugenia - You are welcome. It took me years of training to get them to this state of graceful coordination. Too bad Ocampo had to take JPB away just as they were getting to be world-class.

Anonymous said...

Congo needs capable people to run it. Honest, loving, caring? where to fing leaders with these characteristics? May be Congolese are not ready to take care of they own country yet. Congo is run by idiots.

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