This is not good for the
country, but with the results of the by-elections held so far going in favour
of the PF, we are not seeing President Sata’s appetite to continue poaching
opposition MPs to join PF being satiated. Two are already on cue following UPND
expelling two of its MPs who accepted deputy ministerial positions in the PF against
the wish of the opposition party.
The real problem is the huge
cost at which the country is holding unnecessary polls at the expense of social
services. This by-election run can only be stopped, as Laura Miti puts it:
‘when the voters say enough!’
Quite true, but another concern
is how to make the discourse of campaigns in these by-elections make meaning
for electorates to make informed choices and say enough!
The Patriotic Front has gone
out to ask the electorates to vote for their candidates because it needs people
who are on the same page with it to implement its development programmes. It
has even gone further to threaten electorates that they risk losing out on
development should they vote for the opposition member of parliament. Five
years is too long a period for an area to be subjected to a development ‘blackout’
by government. The threat may be an arm-twisting gimmick, but government is
having its way.
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| Zambian President, Sata |
With this foregoing, our
voters simply think they need to be nice to party in government for it to be
nice and in turn give them development. Unless the opposition is fielding a
very strong and popular candidate, it is hard to get the votes of old and
uninformed citizens in rural areas.
Therefore the opposition needs
to muster their messages differently. In fact the ultimate goal of the
opposition is to stop Sata from creating these by-elections. That they cannot
do without ensuring that the electorate understands the political sphere of the
country, knowing about how government works and why parliament with a strong
opposition is important not only to development, but the liberties of the
citizens. The electorates must be sensitized what these liberties are all
about, why they are more important now than ever and how a parliament that has
a weak opposition can easily arm the ruling party to destroy those liberties.
Without accusing the Patriotic
Front that it is going to destroy these liberties, people need to know that
politicians are unpredictable when left with absolute power and control over
the institutions of governance. There are also far reaching consequences to the
management of the economy when a parliament has more ruling party MPs.
UNIP ruled Zambia for 27
years. When it had opposition in parliament, it managed the economy well. But
immediately it established a one party democracy in 1972, it nationalized the
economy, put in place price controls and chased away the private sector through
bad policies that were being passed in parliament that did not have opposition.
From a strong economy in the 70s Zambia became a basket case, with GDP growing
in the negative, inflation flying in triple digits while shortages of
essentials, including mealie meal became common place. Citizens were taken in
to be interrogated by police for being found with imported margarine. Political
rights collapsed as criticizing wrong decisions by government became a crime.
The MMD also had a parliament
that was dominated by its MPs when in 1996 UNIP boycotted elections. In pursuit
of the free market economy that was not controlled, as there was no strong
voice to advise government on what was wrong with its privatisation Act and
policy, the process was done with the speed that disastrous.
The country sold its companies
to foreign private companies, when the country did not even have economic structures
that could support these former state owned companies to operate efficiently in
private hands. In the end some new private owners just decided to strip the
plant machinery of the manufacturing companies and transplanted them to
neighbouring countries like Zimbabwe and elsewhere. Zambia lost its assets of production and
suffered unprecedented unemployment.
At the same time government
also went ahead to remove input subsidies to farmers and also pulled out from
the marketing of major crops like maize. The result was disastrous because this
was done without the government serious considering the policy implications.
Zambia did not have a strong financial institution and crop marketing
structures to support a liberalized small scale farming sector that was not
oriented to cash business. As such banks were scared to lend the farmers while
the poor roads, absence of granaries to store harvests and all other marketing
requirements scared any serious entrepreneur to enter the crop marketing
sector. What followed was a collapse of the agriculture sector, production of
maize hit the bottom low, mealie meal shortages became common place and prices
of the staple food escalated.
Despite that MMD went to win
every other by-election. The government at the time was popular, and
electorates, who were happy to have taken down the UNIP regime in 1991, always
wished the new government more time in the hope of making things right. But in
waiting for things to get right, they even refused to vote for opposition MPs.
Government leaders feared nothing and no one as it was business as usual in
parliament since they were MPs of one family.
[It is always people who are not your family that
will have the courage to tell you the truth about where you are going wrong,
your own kin fear to mess up the comfort zone]
Zambians will also remember
that even one of the bad constitutions with a controversial clause of parentage
that declared the first republican president, Kenneth Kaunda, a foreigner was
passed by an MMD dominated parliament.
In a nutshell there were many
mistakes that were made by MMD that could have been avoided if Zambian voters
had voted to ensure parliament had a strong opposition.
To say these things, is not
accusing the PF that it will do all these wrong things. They may not take away
the Farmer Input Support Programme, introduced by president Mwanawasa after
2002, and supports small scale farmers maize production. It is not even trying
to smear Patriotic Front with a bad name that they will destroy the economy and
manipulate the constitution. But without the safety of a strong parliament that
is secured by a majority of opposition MPs, the PF may take this country in any
direction they want with nothing to stop them.
Without opposition MPs with
required numbers in parliament to veto certain government bills, who is going
to stop Wynter Kabimba from introducing a bill in parliament to abolish English
as the official language of instruction in our schools replacing it with 73 local
languages instead? That could sound popular among voters, but it could spiral
73 ethnic and economic difficulties.
President Sata has shown us
how he can be extreme in misusing the powers provided to him the constitution. If he has failed to stop himself from being
the most wasteful president by appointing unnecessary deputy ministers, what
can stop him from more abuse?
Appointing three deputy
ministers in one ministry has never happened in the history of this country.
These are things that should be told to stop by voting against the PF in every
other parliamentary by-election. This is because the PF is inducing these
by-elections by offering positions of deputy ministers to opposition MPs that
are selfish and are in politics for personal agrandisement.
This message consistently
communicated, with clarity and with the benefits that may accrue to the
democracy and development of the country will help the electorate change the
way they vote in these by-elections, but
only for the money that PF is throwing to bribe voters to win these elections.
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