Dark Cloud Hangs Over Wynter Kabimba's Political Career

Wynter’s miseries are a making of his own power disorder that makes him not to read precarious political situations. The disorder of power and thinking that he is always right and fails to listen before he talks or to know before he understands, blinded him into the snare of self destruction. His own arrogance and pride has summoned his nemesis. 

 

By Nyalubinge Ngwende

Wynter Kabimba always looked like a secretary general of the ruling Patriotic Front who was going to steer the party to success and probably take over its leadership as president from Michael Sata. He bragged that the Patriotic Front would rule Zambia for the next 100 years, and everyone who believed that must have surely thought this ‘prophetic’ politician will always be there to help lay a foundation for a ‘record-century-rule’ by the country’s third ruling party.

Wynter (left) with Sata listening with all ears

But with the turn of events in the Patriotic Front, the general membership agitated and calling for his resignation, Wynter walks with a dark cloud of political uncertainty over his head and his continued stay in the ruling party seems unlikely. If he manages to stay, he will be a black sheep; unfortunately they do not always stay long as they feel out of place until they find their own kind elsewhere!

The man is dejected, as party leadership allegedly from all the 10 provinces are demanding that Wynter steps down.

With this growing unpopularity leading to a vote of no confidence, Wynter may be thinking he will still survive what he calls the acts of evil. Boasting that he was not elected to his position as party SG by a single vote from the provincial delegates but appointed by President Michael Sata, as he has pompously told off those calling for him to step down, he believes it is only Sata who can fire him.

The question is: will Sata stand to wait and condone a party Secretary General in Wynter who dishevels the harmony of the entire Patriotic Front party leadership in the nine provinces? I think it is never in Sata’s patience to sit-by. It is a conjecture, but the goings-on in the ruling party just gives Sata an impression that his Chief Executive Officer has failed to command respect among rank and file. He will consider Wynter to have failed to make party cadres understand him and lack any tact to manage and deal with disputes in the ruling party. 

That is leadership failure. To Sata, if Wynter has failed on this current problem, then he may not just be trusted to deal with more complicated problems that may emerge in the nearest future. My guess is that Sata may remove Wynter from the position of Secretary General and replace him, but still retain him as nominated MP and Justice Minister in cabinet. Unless Sata sees this as a premature move that is detrimental, sacrificing Wynter might just be the next thing.

But does Wynter deserve all this?

One might want to really sympathise with Wynter during these turbulent times engulfing him. But when one looks back at what has led to his embattlement, one may just agree that the man deserves a day and the next of his political miseries.

Since the confusion erupted in the Patriotic Front about a month ago a certain disorder of power with well known symptoms seems to have afflicted Wynter.

There is literally no-people-management in Wynter that anyone can admire. When President Sata finally put a stop to the endorsements because that could only happen if someone proposed his name, the intervention provided a break in the debate that was dividing the party. It must have given Wynter, as CEO of the party, breathing space to embark on reconciling the opposing views and just seek general peace. He was supposed to move in a whirlwind of things to meet all provincial leadership and talk passionately about the time they spent with President Sata while in the opposition, and the vision of leadership they have shared which, as Sata suggested, is open to all those who have aspirations. He was supposed to put to rest all suspicions that he has ambitions of taking over the party and contest presidency in the event that the incumbent does not complete his tenure. Wynter was supposed to talk peace and not war.

Instead of doing that Wynter showed the obvious signs of hubris, choosing to yell from the press, calling those opposed to him as a clique of tribalists bent on evil. This does not show any humility expected of a good leader who seeks cooperation with others. He disrespected the views of other party members on the matter, inflated a show of arrogance which is one of the symptoms of leadership failure or hubris—a natural phenomenon that strikes leaders who lose it in power by being arrogant and intolerant or insensitive to those under them.

As is the case of those who are afflicted by this condition, Wynter refused to be humbled. This is proved by Lusaka Province chairman Horace Longwe who is quoted by media saying “the party in the province has resolved that Wynter leaves his position as Secretary General because he was stubborn and had failed to connect with party structures and grassroots which do the actual voting”.

With this, one can see that Wynter’s miseries are a making of his own power disorder that makes him not to read precarious political situations. The disorder of power and thinking that he is always right and fails to listen before he talks or to know before he understands, blinded him into the snare of self destruction. His own arrogance and pride has summoned his nemesis.   

Will Wynter survive this storm?

It is unlikely. What those who want him out of his position have done is to turn Wynter into a common enemy. They know the party rank and file need to see Wynter as a bad person who has wrong ambitions and working on motives that are not in the interest of the party. They have manufactured or just stumbled on concrete evidence to implicate him. They have accused him of working with Sikwindi Situla, a publisher of the Barotse Times, to push presidential ambitions; they have linked him to the formation of a new political party called the Fourth Republic Party and that he has neglected the leadership of the PF under him.

Wynter cannot escape these accusations until he is nailed to the cross. All that is remaining now is to bring him before President Sata to meet the people and ask him who they want sacrificed for the PF two years in power. 

Sata like Pontius Pilate will then wash his hands that he finds nothing wrong in Wynter. But since it is a practice of democracy to listen to the demands of the masses, he is going to leave the matter to the party general leadership handing him over to them for their verdict. The masses always win and their role in this process is decisive. Wynter must not be mistaken, this process might seemed to be pushed by hoodlums without leadership, but because he miscalculated by failing to speak the language of the forces opposing him so that he could understand them and them him, those forces have found leadership.

With no doubt you cannot have delegations representing the provincial leadership organise, meet in Lusaka and pass a resolution demanding that Wynter must resign. The Patriotic Front hoodlums have found leadership in the name of Willie Nsanda (Sata’s campaign manager), Samuel Mukupa (PF central committee member) and Jean Kapata (Mandevu MP and central committee member).

Jean says Wynter’s utterances quoted in the media accusing other party members of being part of a tribal clique that is fighting him has brought the party in disrepute and goes against article 15 (g) of the party constitution. She has written a letter to the party leadership demanding for Wynter to be disciplined.

Wynter must know that these demands from people opposing him are not making him strong but only weakening further his standing as the Chief Executive Officer of the ruling party. He has more enemies in the Patriotic Front than he would have if he was an opposition leader.

Sad for him that his sweet grapes in the ruling party ends up making sour wine.

NN