>>What Losing or Winning Means to PF and
UPND<<
By
Nyalubinge Ngwende
Opposition
United Party for National Development (UPND) presidential candidate Hakainde
Hichilema may be the happiest to win an election on January 20, 2015, but
turnout to be the most disappointed if he were to lose this time around.
He
may still endure the pain because he has lost before and lost nothing in his
livelihood. He can still milk his cows and sit on many boardroom meetings to
make business decisions and see for once that maybe it was not meant for him to
be President of this Great Nation.
But
the UPND stewards might push for his standing down this time if he loses it. He
will have to contend with the impatience of his aging MPs being in opposition
almost for eternity and that of the younger MPs who feel they can command more
respect and support more than what HH may have been managing. UPND will be
tested for its real character.
Will
it be Gary Kombo or Cornelius Mweetwa to lead the 'OUST HH' crusade? Or will
they count the votes and see the small margin as something that could be closed
and crossed in 2016 when Zambia goes to the proper election next year, 2016?
These
are things that should be sitting on the side of the confidence that UPND has
about winning this election and the fear of losing it.
Coming
to the ruling Patriotic Front (PF) and its candidate Edgar Lungu.
If
Lungu wins, he will pray to heaven for what God can do and be happy to be the
sixth President. But if he were to lose, which is also possible, I fear he may
lose everything, including his PF friends.
I
do not know if he will practice law anymore and still get the comfort he has
enjoyed especially after being double minister and acting President.
On
the other hand PF is a party that would find it difficult to stick together
after losing. It has been in government for only a short time and exhibited the
most potency for self-destruction or call it implosion.
The
solace is that PF has been tested on this one, I mean confusion. But it has
emerged shaky, exhausted from the near-sink but still rowing the boat and we do
not know what has seemed to keep it together. Is it that it is a political
party in power? Can they stand the confusion in opposition when there will be
no longer anything to stick around for, something like ministerial positions
and other favors that moths find in the closet of the rich?
Will
those people who did not want Lungu to ascend to PF party presidency and claim
a much contested candidature for presidency approve of his continuing at the
helm. Will they not go all out and tell him "WE TOLD YOU SO".
It
is not easy to come out of a collapsed building, wounded and stay strong to
retrieve some hope and valuable remnants, but only to be hit by another triple
after-shock, and still stand again. PF came out of a serious succession infighting
that has seen the party divided, with some people who were friends no longer
embracing.
Will
Mulenga Sata allow his late father's making-of-a-party just vanish in oblivion?
Sylvia Masebo has been itching and Miles Sampa still does not believe that
Lungu got the candidature by digging it deep out of his nails.
Then
there is the Rainbow party in which Wynter Kabimba is a surrogate leader
waiting as a vulture to consume PF disgruntles who may be led by Masebo or
Sampa who are cooling waiting for their parliamentary term to end and decide
the direction of things.
These
are things that Lungu and his team must be ruminating over as they run this
campaign that has been short of resources and seemingly a number of breakdowns
which the campaign team has vehemently refuted.
I
have left out the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) Nevers Mumba because
all its members have chosen to sell their souls to either UPND’s Hakainde
(no-middle-name) Hichilema or PF’ Edgar Chagwa Lungu. MMD’s Mumba is really
running without the full support of his party members.
NN
