On Zambian Politics by Elaston

An Email from Elaston

Hi guys, please share with friends, family, Zambians, Africans and whoever you think should hear this messege:
love and regards
Elaston

In 1991, after 27 years in power, Zambia’s Kenneth Kaunda decided to do the unthinkable. He called for multiparty elections.


At a time when many on the continent were used to leaders being removed through coups, revolutions and assassinations, the move shocked many.
The nation had been agitating for some time for the country to drop the one-party democracy model. Reeling from an economic crisis they blamed on the ruling United National Independence Party, the people wanted a chance to choose their leaders like people in other democracies.
Against the advice of his ministers and counsellors, Kaunda went ahead — with three years of his term still left.
When he was advised not to stand because he may suffer humiliation, he insisted he had unfinished business and was confident the people would allow him to complete it.
The opposite happened.
On the day the votes were counted, Kaunda quickly sensed that the trend was going against him. He decided not to wait for the final tally and phoned his rival, Frederick Chiluba, to congratulate him. He invited Chiluba over to State House and introduced him to the staff.
This is your president, he told them.

As the results were streaming in, the military chiefs rushed to State House, seeking an audience with Kaunda. They wanted to know what it was they should do about this state of affairs. Clearly, Chiluba could not be allowed to take power, they argued.

Kaunda proceeded to give them a lecture in democracy. He told them that he had sought the opinion of the Zambian people about who should run their country, and the people had clearly indicated that they would rather be ruled by Chiluba than him. Who are we to think we are wiser than the people, he asked them. The soldiers left State House dejected and unconvinced. His ministers and aides tried to prevail on him to declare a state of emergency and annul the election. He stood firm. “This is not the outcome I wanted but it is the outcome I must respect,” Kaunda said.
Later that night he conceded defeat in a television and radio address. And he made sure the military were in attendance so that they, too, would be bound by his concession.

It is said that upon hearing the news of Chiluba’s concession, an aide of Zaire’s Mobutu Sese Seko ran into a cabinet meeting with a note informing the dictator of developments next door.
A shocked Mobutu nearly jumped out of his chair and exclaimed: “I thought KK was smart. How can he lose an election that he himself was running?”
Democracy had arrived in Zambia. But it turned out that, in exercising their democratic rights, the Zambians had made a big mistake.

Upon taking power, Chiluba went on a gluttonous rampage through the fiscus. He ferreted money to foreign accounts and pampered himself and his extended family at the state’s expense.
Chiluba even sought to run for a third term. He used youthful goons to force his party to help him change the constitution to enable him to run. He failed and Zambian democracy triumphed.
His successor, Levy Mwanawasa, turned out to be a better bet than Chiluba. Although he was no inspirational visionary, he consolidated democracy. By the time he died a few months ago, he had become one of the few heads of state on the continent prepared to break the leadership brotherhood’s code of silence on human rights abuses.

Last month, Zambia’s voters went to the polls to elect a new leader again. During the election campaign, the ruling Movement for Multiparty Democracy’s candidate, Rupiah Banda, and his opposition rival, Michael Sata, traversed the country, urging Zambians to back them.
Not a single rally was disrupted. Not a single leader was beaten up. Not a single chair was thrown.After the election there were cries of foul play from Sata and his supporters, who are challenging the results in court.

But that was about it.

The significance of this story is that there is a lot to be learnt from our brethren on the continent. Very often you hear the nonsense that democracy does not, and cannot, work in Africa. These views come from both condescending racists as well as apologists for African dictatorship.
You hear it from many in our ruling party — it is used to justify a one-party-dominant democracy and why we cannot afford to have strong opposition.
We need to develop our own brand of African democracy, some scholars and politicians say, which is a rather racist notion that the people of this continent dare not be trusted with making choices.
This piece is not about praising Kaunda and painting him as an angel and model of modern statesmanship. He was, after all, in power for 27 years, during which he wrecked that country’s economy.
It is also not to paint Zambia as the ultimate model of a working democracy. Zambia is by no means perfect.
Kaunda and the Zambian experience should show us roads we should not walk and mistakes we need not make.
But we can emulate their relatively successful efforts at building a stable democracy.
Our leaders should also take note of the fact that even an iconic leader like Kaunda could accept that the wisdom of the people could be superior to his.

Kitwe Riots 2008

When All Else Fails

I hate to think of what I was telling people will happen has started happening. We in Zambia are used to use an old and outdated statement of Zambians are peaceful by nature. Disgusting!
Is it that Zambians are the only people with a DNA coding which includes peace? Are they made in such a way that the nature of violence cannot come into them?? Hell no!! The peace value peace and will do anything to prevent violence – fun thing is, every human nature has that. We are not special, just have the time to live and let go.

Let no one think otherwise, the elections were rigged and the MMD has been doing this for a long time now. They are a government interested in getting the benefits for themselves and not the people. They have done all they can to hold on to power. They have made themselves and their families rich while the people they are supposed to take care of are starving. They simply don't care. They have no time for the people. The people have tried and failed many times to get rid of MMD but MMD has done all it can to hold on to power and continue enjoying the fruits of control.

Peace is a fun thing and in most cases, it is taken for granted. Every person has a limit and if you push them against the wall, they will react in desperate and dangerous manner. It doesn't matter who. Zambians easily forget that Kaunda had riots that forced him out of power. The country had the worst possible failure in peace that curfew was imposed in almost every possible place. I remember the times and some have deliberately forgotten because they have been in MMD or benefit from MMD's rule which the majority don't. So it all boils down to, when all else fails, we hit back hard. When a peaceful person reacts and becomes violent, it really is bad.

Kitwe riots are but a beginning of what could take the whole country into a dead zone. I knew and expected this to happen. I even went as far as preparing to cancel my trip next December so that I don't get caught up in the silly violence that MMD is fueling with higher mealie meal prices and high fuel price. Seriously, we grow our own maize, mill it, package it but the economics involved make it impossible for people to buy the stample food. We know for sure how the same economics has been taken to fuel and the price of it has arisen so high it is shocking!

Take one thing for sure. When people went to vote on 30th October, they did that with hope that MMD and its useless policies and economics will be a thing of the past. It never was. Someone in MMD decided to correct their choices of leadership and the outcome was Banda. They had all the trust in the system that will be full of good willing for the people and they can get what they want. Who ever thought they didn't know know what they wanted? Democracy has to take into account the fact that even if the choice people make does not go with yours, they made the choice and not anyone else. Thats why institutions like secret service exist to ensure they protect whoever the people want. Unlike our OP which will do anything to get rid of anyone not agreeing with the president. Thats a bad situation and which we must correct at all costs.

I don't like Sata as an individual, I have come to live with the fact that hes one of the few people no matter how you hate him, he works far better for Zambian political standards. Even Chiluba as president reported him to ACC but they found nothing. So I believe most of his supporters have a point to put across. If they want him, they have disagreed with MMD in many things and consider him better than anyone they put him against. HH has lost to him countless times and if he had a heart of the people, he would have come togethere with Sata to take MMD out, but he was too greedy for power and thought he could beat Sata. Today even chances for him to win in 2011 have been compromised as people take it, he cost them the victory by being greedy. I agree with them and hope he will find a deal better than what people promised him.

HH has been taken as a tonga tribalist. I wish I had a way to disagree with them. But fact is, unlike Mazoka whose victory was stolen from him, HH has surround himself with tribalists. He may not actually be tribal in his activities but the people around him are – FACT! You see the first statements of these bemba tribalist are blah blah from tongas. And you wonder what they are talking about. Sata is bemba but does not disagree or support the people in MMD from the same region. Now when Magande started his campign, every UPND support supported him as the engineer of the economy. I even saw a situation were HH would have not stood had he won. Magande lost and they all went back to UPND. Now thats not a political stand but tribal. These are things we see and know will happen given that chance. Mazoka on the other hand was a true leader with all people on his mind – may his sole rest in peace. He didn't use the tonga vote to reach were he was, he used the people. HH has a lot to do for us to trust him with the country. We don't trust his people. We know were he worked, what he did and how the place is. Unfortunately, no matter how much you say hes tribal, the first people to disagree are tongas. Anyone else it will be shocking unless they don't know him. Ask yourselves if you think he is not tribal, are you tonga or not? If you are, don't get involved in that argument as it will make it true. Let other tribes support him. Thats how not being tribal starts.

I hope MMD and the entire government has seen that when you push people against the wall, they get violent. And all that is your fault not theirs. Lets make sure not any other riot come to our country by making sure, we make an electoral process that will bring out what the people want not what government wants no matter the cost. Government is not a god that should decide for the people as they have that right themselves. We need to respect what we disagree with and learn to move on.

People disagreed with the constitution making process but that was hijacked. Now will people respect the constitution that comes out of NCC. Mwanawasa promoted NCC and hes dead now and left us with what we didn't want. Thats bad legacy. We would have been happier if he gave us what we wanted because the people will always cherish what they wanted.

Lets work on an electoral process that will make us celebrate won wins and ensures we see a smooth transfer of power to a president elect. We shouldn't put a president with verification of votes and court cases going on. They should be a time after a win to do all that. Its shameful, we hold elections and everyone is bitter and only happy to celebrate victory of Obama from USA!!! Let government itself be patriotic to the country.

Where We Went Wrong

Where We Went Wrong

We had 1991 peaceful, transparent, free and fair elections. We had a great leader in charge of those elections, Kenneth Kaunda! I have heard people insult the man for many things, but please let us praise him for the great many things that he did for our beloved Zambia. He alone showed us that greatness in a leader must stand the taste of time. He is the great leader we had. I know he messed some things, but he had a heart for the country. I only feel disappointed that he stood and cheered for a leader the people did not want. Whatever happened to him supporting HH like he did before. Why of all people should he support RB, one person he fired for corruption. Is it the question of putting relatives first and not the country? I believe he not only commanded enough resources and people to rig the elections, but had the humanity to let the people choose what they want. How can he now be like that? He gave people the democracy they wanted with a stroke of a pen. We still cry for a good constitution, not better, but that can not be granted up to now. Chiluba came and brought all the worst possible things that can come from a leader, and we still pay for that. He brought in rigging in this country, he brought plundering of resources, he arrested and imprisoned anyone who stood in his way. But the worst thing he ever brought to this nation are the people around him who up to now are still working as part of government. The great dream of a great nation in Africa died with him in control.

Mwanawasa tried his best, but could not run away from the people Chiluba put in place. Actually Mwanawasa was never wanted by people in urban areas. It is said, they used the rural areas to rig that election. We mourned his death with great interest and respect for him, but we must put down things he did which make it impossible for us to move on as a country. He kept constitution assembly from us and gave us “his” version of what we wanted through NCC. That was his wish and not the people's wish. It is totally his own thing and not what we want. He also killed the young democracy that we had. He alone got MPs from other parties and made it impossible for opposition to rule. He killed any hope of a united opposition to counter check the government activities. My greatest complaint with him was hes fighting corruption but, at the same time promoting nepotism. Government was full of his relatives and in-laws. How can a leader have such double standards?

So where we went wrong? Simple. We messed up when we had a good leader under Kaunda. We were more interested in getting rid of him and not create a situation which will ensure we have a good leader to follow. We were supposed to create a way that we guard against thieves, plunderers and all that are enemies of good leadership. We are paying for that right now. We can't even hold elections that Kaunda gave us in 1991. We are going back in time and bringing back what we fought for. Even independent media organizations are facing closure because of MMD. How sad that we have come a long way, but actually moved only a step forward. We are doomed before we even start moving. I wonder whatever cursed my beloved country to reach such levels of problems, to have such levels of so called leaders, such disaster in elections.

We need to mend our leakages. The only one I think is critical is the constitution and one made by the people and not MMD. We know how much we should not trust MMD. MMD was a pillar in the region, but is the worst curse to SADC region, only second to Mugabe's group.

SADC observer mission

SADC observer mission Failing the People of SADC

While the SADC observer mission in Zimbabwe has called Saturday’s elections a “peaceful and credible expression of the will of the people,” one observer with the group strongly rejects that assessment.

Dianne Kohler Barnard is a South African member of parliament belonging to the opposition Democratic Alliance Party. From Harare, she spoke to VOA English to Africa Service reporter Joe De Capua about her views on the presidential and parliamentary elections.

“My mandate here as a member of SADC was not to declare which party won the election, but whether the process was free and fair. And frankly it was neither. Of the 13 tenants contained in the SADC guidelines only two seem to be in compliance and the rest were being blatantly flouted. So, I failed to understand how the SADC report says the elections were ‘a credible expression of the will of the people.’
http://danielmolokele.blogspot.com/2008/03/some-sadc-observers-reject-official.html

I feel this group of people are more interested in legitimizing illegal governments and enjoy the allowances that they are offered for traveling to election countries. We have been robbed of credible observers who are not interested in benefits but in ensuring the will of the people, no matter how small the person is, is taken into consideration. We are not interested in hearing stories like babies. I remember this group failing the people of Zimbabwe and now Zambia. Do we need such nonsense to continue? Honestly you issue that elections where free and fair, even before some results are announced as people where voting 2 days later than everyone else and that was kept as a secret from all? When the number of voters are different from those who registered and you don't question how that can be? Is it the mandate of the observers to leave troubles to escalate and turn into civil war for them to see that things are not worth while?

Is SADC so toothless that it can't setup certain guidelines on all governance issues to ensure governments in the whole of SADC behave and produce desirable results? Is it impossible to setup real yard sticks that governments should reach as a region for free and fair elections? Does the SADC serve the people of SADC or the governments that rule them? We seriously have to measure the value that the bring if they can't scrutinize the simplest election activities and get their allowances. I feel an election with toothless observers is as good as one without, or one with primary school children playing on the swings.

Africa is doomed forever with the type of activities that we see in our regional groupings

Dying Hope Of A Zambian

Hope is the only thing good that my country has. We hope for a good future for ourselves, we hope for a good future for our children, we hope for good leadership, we hope for hope ... that we hope to have.
Shameless, even the little choice we have in our own desire, is slowly taken away. Hope... is taken away slowly. These are my dying hope pages which reflect the little ideas of a dying hope for my beloved country. I never left the country to get money or to find a better job, I left to find hope. Hope that died in my country. Died with all that I at one time owned.
I love my Zambia. I have everything that can be Zambian from my simplest accent, to the silly ideas about my country and the peacefulness that has been taken for granted. But I have failed to live in a country which has been robbed of everything including a choice to choose what one wants. Everything is abuse about my country. Abuse of peace, abuse of electoral system, abuse of people, abuse of national wealth for personal gains, abuse of human rights, abuse of constitution and its making process, abuse of citizens, abuse of the system, and abuse all that I can think of.
My president, I'm one of the few citizens of any country that would say that and not feel proud that you are the leader. Why? No one of us feel you deserve to be our leader. Not because you don't qualify, or worth the praise, but because we feel you were imposed upon us by your system. Its this sad truth about Zambia and its leadership. We probably are one of the few people in the world that never celebrate a president taking office because, he probably would be rushed through to avoid any one questioning and proving you are not worth being one because the system was forced upon us. We feel proud to greet opposition leadership as they have been accept by us. They are not one of the imposed people. Even a simple man would be respected by people, but my president will not earn the respect but be forced to respect, which, of course means respect is not there. So maybe it is not your doing that puts you in that situation, but thats me trying very hard to think you are worth every power that you command. Its sad that actually, it may be just a sad story.
Sata has all that we want from him, he is not imposed upon us. We have learnt to deal with his short-comings, and he will have all that a leader, a king can have. He will be mourned by his greatest by being with the people. He will be praised whole heartedly and not for political capital, I'm sorry, but his a greater man for being for the people. And thats the difference with him and any of the leaders we see in your government.
We know and saw how people with corrupt tendencies were celebrating your victory. And we mourned. We mourned how their pending cases will soon start to be thrown out of court. We hoped the justice system would save mother Zambia, but we know how many judges dance to the government tune at many occasions. We have none to save us. The late president did his best, much as it was not enough for some of us because of the way it was done and how he himself got his family in the system, he had no base to stand on, because partly we felt he too was imposed upon us. We mourned his death because we realized that no matter how tough things were for him, he stood for something and died for his country. We were more saddened by the way the party fought to take his position. How many people were bribed to get ones way. Even the opposition behaved much more honorably by leaving politics aside till the man was buried, his friends didn't think of that. The same people that he tried to get out of the system, came to celebrate your victory as they will now have a greater share of the cake. They will soon be ready to serve you so you can celebrate your victory for many more years to come.
We will continue to suffer toil the land and hope.... hope when we vote again, no one will speak for us by choosing what they want from what we want. Mum gave me best leasons in life. The few that I can talk about here are:
what goes around, comes around.
If one wants something, don't deny them, only they know the true value of it.
We know what we want and wanted, we were denied by those who think are masters over the other people.
I know that mourning saves me no purpose, but it makes like bearable to realize the pain I go through for what I believe is worth much more. I have never been in government for reasons that it never seems to serve anyone but the people in it. If it were close to what I think is an ideal government, I would be one of the few people staying away from campaigns to get people elected. But now, I can only encourage people to vote in the hope... hope that one day, our vote will truly matter.
Our government has such short comings, we should be praised for being cheated that it can server us, praised for even paying tax to finance other people's desires and dreams.

POLICE:
Unappreciated, lowly paid and corrupt profession that it has come to be. And yet in most cases, only used to defend a leader's desires and not to keep all citizens protected. It is equated to king's guards and tax collectors of history. Maybe we should take time to see what these great men and women exist for:

ARMY:
Only your time have I see an army cheapened to the level of keeping protestors in check. Were on earth can an army be put on alert to counter protesting people- ZAMBIA. Such an insult to the an arm which was so respected by all people, but has come to stand and defend only selected few. God forbid what they would do if there was an attack by enemies of the country. They probably would want to beat them and throw tear-gas on them!

INTELLIGENCE SERVICE:
Its an ironical that such a name exists for this group of people. I prefer OP as it clearly shows they can serve one person and injury whoever wants to stand in the way of that person. If really intelligence was the order of the day, this group would be the most useful in the country setup to sort out anything that seems to be distractor to the country. But they are for witch-hunting on the citizens. I pray, my blog wont be my death sentence as I can't even express these thoughts without looking over my shoulder. And we are called a democratic country. I think we need to redefine the word.
But these are mere thoughts of mine, on my blog. Intended to bring peace to my mind for expressing what I feel.