Can the Patriotic Front learn from the pitfalls of Movement
for Multiparty Democracy in handling the state of the nation on the issues of
good governance and economic aspirations of the citizens?
By Nyalubinge Ngwende
It is one year and exactly two months now since the Movement for Multiparty
Democracy (MMD) lost its stay in government to the Patriotic Front (PF) after
20 years managing or mismanaging the affairs of Zambia.
It is not bad
for Zambia to change a political party in power and ushering in another. In
fact, it is great test of democracy and a healthy sign that Zambians can
exercise their right to choose who should lead them. It legitimises the
authority of those who govern.
That fact is
inherent in any open political system like Zambia. At least the lesson in
France, Britain, the Netherlands and elsewhere around the world where electorates
have changed leadership, testifies to that.
But while this
fact was at play, there are also specific policy problems and self destructive
tendencies that point to MMD becoming a distasteful political party among
electorates and losing that election.
On the policy
front, unemployment levels were never going down despite the economic stats
showing an improved outlook with a GDP of over 6 percent growth and increased
Foreign Direct Investment.
Agriculture was also
performing better, but not at its best due to issues in the structures of input
distribution and crop marketing. Unless
one chooses unnecessary arguments that are personalised as a result of their
interests being closed out, the farming inputs support changed the fortunes of
a serious rural small scale farmer and contributed remarkably to the country’s
food security. The staple food prices were stabilised and as a result kept the
country’s inflation at bay.
How the PF
performs in this sector, will be the talking point for MMD between the next
farming seasons and 2016 elections. If agriculture and the essential food
market policies are mishandled, as the end of 2012 has revealed shortages of
mealie meal and delayed distribution of inputs, the Patriotic Front should
count those as bad assets in its image. The bad image can stick quickly due to
unintended mismanagement of the affairs of the country, but they stick for long
and hard to pluck out.
Under the MMD, with
the amount of business interests taking place in the economy, there was growing
concern among civil society and politicians that the government was crossing
the path of legal processes or public procedure in awarding contracts and sale
of public assets.
Despite the
private media—which definitely had fallen on a bad footing with the leaders in
government—shouted out in outrage, the government brushed aside the outcry as
malice or nonsense.
To make matters
worse, no one in the hierarchy of the MMD patronage had time to sit down and
analyse the best way to deal with these issues that were in public domain.
Instead, in many instances they defended the government actions with shocking ineptness.
They started venting their anger on the private newspapers and commercial radio
stations. Some responses, given to less
qualified presidential press aides—who did not have a team to help analyse deep
and give educated responses—only managed to annoy the well informed citizens.
Provocative Baseless Defences
The Patriotic
Front government will need to look at this matter. So far the responses from
George Chellah, President Sata’s press aide, are less intelligent and just
provocative. There is more to spinning for the nation than writing sassy or
disrespectful and scandalous articles against Rupiah Banda or an political
opponent of a newspaper. This fact Chellah, who was plucked from The Post
Newspaper for the services rendered to the Patriotic Front campaigns, must know
so well. He must show less arrogance in his responses by avoiding lines and
tones that are ludicrous, thereby making people who seek to provide checks and
balances to President appear stupid, too. Government spokesperson Kennedy
Sakeni has not been helping the situation; he speaks as though government is
overseeing a bunch of passive villagers who can hardly read between the lines.
In the heat of
things during MMD there were attempted, but ill constructed and un-sustained
efforts to try and pursue the wrongs to do with the tax obligation and other
private business dealings of the media owners like that of Fred M’membe of The
Post Newspaper. As a result enmity grew between government and The Post. Non
tax payment of institutions must be discussed at business level, concerned
government institutions and the line minister bringing to the table such issues
than use them as weapons to discredit the perceived enemies.
MMD did not read
the times, even if The Post Newspaper could have been largely fault seeking for
the purposes of expanding the liking for the Patriotic Front and Michael Sata
among electorates, that battle was not supposed to be fought against the
newspaper. This is because opportunities for the private media to take MMD to
the cleaners as a dirty party that had mismanaged the affairs and resources of
the country provided themselves. Cases of RP Capital and Zamtel sale, the
Lusaka International (Now KK) Airport and the Finance Bank saga, all were
issues to wash down the MMD.
These cases
genuinely raised eye brows and begged for genuine explanation from government
to show that nothing was wrong. Instead of coming out with clear satisfying answers,
the spin team of the MMD did not do any good job, leaving huge room for
speculation. The quick nature and tone of response from government just left
many citizens wondering and annoyed.
By 2011,
Zambia’s economy had a lot of brighter colours, but those did not translate in
all the people having equal opportunities to realise their benefits. Those few
who were well connected to the government, even in villages seemed to have been
the only ones who benefited from all the big and small contracts. The majority
who were left out believed the MMD mismanagement theory.
The bulk of negative
assets that were accruing against MMD popularity were left unattended to. The
MMD leadership chose to be casual and treat those who expressed dissent as
thoughtless enemies. The MMD was ignored the wisdom of receptiveness to such
matters; an ingredient that makes electorates feel part of the politics and
government processes because they are listened to. The pride and aspirations of
citizens are radiated more when leaders take the path of their opinion in
instances that are critical, like when leaders cannot provide a convincing
answer and are pushed to their back foot.
These problems
have not gone out from the former ruling party. They do not sit to weigh value
of situations and the value of members who may seem to be disobedient. The MMD
leadership is quick at taking severe punishment against its members in a one
way communication style, without even seeking room to censure these erring
members so that they remain in the fold.
While
occasionally the MMD tries to be democratic by electing its leaders at national
level, the party has less mechanisms of addressing its problems and resolve
them other than the shorter and fastest one of expelling its members.
Empty Public Media Praises
Inefficiencies
in the health delivery system, like a pregnant woman giving birth on the floor
due to lack of an ambulance, and financial problems in institutions of higher
learning that led to student protests provided media with enough arsenal
against the MMD government.
The opposition
made political fodder out of the ineptness and what they saw as decisions meant
to benefit individuals from government contracts, while service delivery
remained rudimentary and youth unemployment continued to rise.
This increased
people’s annoyance. The citizens thought leaders were eating off their heads.
The school leavers and graduates from universities and colleges who could not
get employed blamed nobody, but the MMD.
Poor safety and
slave wages in businesses, especially those run by the Chinese were public
knowledge or maybe exaggerated, but government leaders remained mute. This
compounded the belief of government being corrupt in the public eyes.
On the other
hand Public Media, as per tradition, was tuned to singing praises. Even if
reporters in public media found a story to scream against government, they
sought to seek government or MMD spokesperson to provide rebuttal. With or
without any strong intelligent reaction, the ruling party stories took over the
pages and air waves. It was about “government denies this or that”, completely
on the defensive or on the run from the truth.
If not, it was
about singing the successes of government or ridiculing the PF leader Michael
Sata’s past acts and utterances. Unfortunately, electorates were concerned not
about what Sata did or said in the past.
The electorates bought in his message of low taxes and more money in
people’s pocket, youth employment and ending the many problems in 90 Days.
The Patriotic
Front must therefore be the first to know this and not run a government that
defends its unmet promises by blaming the Movement for Multiparty Democracy.
This is why people voted for the Patriotic Front, to address the inadequacies
of the previous government. People would love to know why their current
government has not been able to create jobs for many youths who are
disillusioned about their university qualifications. They need to know why up
to now the country cannot create wealth for most of its people out of the
abundant natural resources that are being extracted and sold to enrich
multinationals and countries of destinations.
These things
will not be realised with President Sata and his administration attacking and feeding
the nation on rhetoric about failures of Rupiah Banda. Instead the President needs
to accept that the challenges that lie ahead are ‘about me and my government’
to surmount as the country heads to 2016 elections.
Elections are
never won by imagination or negative attacks on the opponents. A leader to win
an election must find out what the whole election is all about. Not even the
amount of negative media can override people's interests—jobs, education,
health and being able to meet the necessities of life. Messages must be found
that will win people's hearts about these issues. That won PF the 9/20
election in 2011.
Vice President Guy Scot knows that
unemployment is a time bomb to the ruling party and that simply means the PF
has its focus on job creation. Unless PF chooses to sidestep on this very fact,
the opposition might have nothing better to offer. If PF is going to start
creating jobs, Nevers Mumba or whichever opposition leader will need to tell
the people how as leader will make MMD do it even better than the reality PF is
living with. This also applies to health and education delivery system.
Unexplained Deportations
Further, the
Patriotic Front has no problem with the media, but has turned to questionable
deportations of business people and influential leaders of the community they
believe could be sympathetic to its opponents. Directors of Zambezi Portland
from Italy were all deported over allegations that they were not paying the
Zambian employees properly. These are far reaching decisions that surpass what
meets the eye or national interest.
One day someone
will have to genuinely account for these actions, and it will have to be the
Patriotic Front and the business friends for whom they have taken these
unpopular actions for. Edgar Lungu, Home Affairs Minister, is not still convincing
up-to-date over these actions.
The deported
Italians were at the centre of controversy over the ownership of Zambezi
Portland Cement, a company on which a prominent businessman Rajan Mathani—a
known Patriotic Front friend—had also put claims and the matter is in court.
Lungu was forced
to reverse the deportation of a Rwandese priest working the Lundazi district of
eastern Zambia, but later sent another Rwandese who had spent over 40 years in
the country packing for allegedly financing an opposition political party.
