Presidential Priorities

I'm a firm believer that anyone can do what they want. The limits to that lays strictly in them. I believe human capacity is determined by individual capacity which is affect by what they are. And to add to this, people are the products of their genes and environment. All these sum-up what one can do or can not do. I'm a little uncomfortable about the genes but have, with time, realized they could really contribute to what one can do. For example if your genes come from a family prone to certain genetic diseases, you can not avoid being affected by that disease. Quick to add, i'm a social scientist so i'm could be limited in my understanding of the genetics.

Having said that, I judge people on what they can offer, not what they promise to offer. The difference being that, the offer may be a result of people around them and not themselves taking that thing seriously. So if presidential candidates stand and say one thing when I know they mean something else, my better judgement should be to follow what I know they will provide.

My understanding of what one is worth is evident in what one unknowingly throws out as something he understands. Anything with links to being written for them or told about will carry the label of “I don't know this” no matter how convincing they try to be.

RB knew one thing about his priority when he assumes power, and he has implemented it. The rest are a mere suprise and shock to him that they should be addressed. My wife laughed at me when I said RB had no vision for his presidency as his scope was narrow and limited to just one thing – visa fees. He spoke with confidence and vigor about that than anything else. His entire being was focused on reducing the visa-fees. Even after being sworn in, thats the first thing he talked about. Don't believe me? http://appablog.wordpress.com/2008/11/02/zambia-inauguration-speech-by-president-rupiah-banda-november-2-2008/ And to that effect, visa charges have been reduced. How does that affect the Zambian in chibolya? Well, I will need to show you with basic tools of economics, and believe me, it does affect them and makes their life better off.

But surely, of all things that a president can take as priority, he chose visa charges!!?? why not looking at the poverty in the country that MMD seems to have ignored.

“there are game parks and warm hospitality to enjoy.
i want tourism centres all over Zambia.
i want the world to see how diverse and unique our country is.
i have already promised to reduce visa fees; this should welcome more visitors to our country.
i also want visitors to enjoy the fruits of our land.
our farmers play an important role in feeding us all. we will continue to support them in producing food surpluses.
the price of fertilizer and fuel has already come down.
these lower input costs provide a valuable window of opportunity.”

I wished I could look at the inauguration speech with a smile at how many good things he will do, but alas, nothing worth my pen! Tourism is more important than getting people put of poverty? Is it more important to show case Zambia to the world at reduced visa fees than making Zambians benefit from the fruits of their country? This is clearly a lack of substance on things to do when one is a president. No wonder we always rush to inauguration because in most if not all cases, elections have a rig stamp on them.

We had a discussion on the promises that the candidates had before the elections. RB and HH were lacking in substance or had ideas of what to do but lacked the simplest idea of what to do. Two points were taken from Sata which had substance and could have had a great impact in the country. Regardless of who is ruling, if Sata's ideas are taken up, a lot more could be achieved in this country. So sad that the one person with ideas is also old to take the presidency and maybe bring something worth talking about. I know a lot of people have nicely been brain washed by MMD to think Sata has everything bad about him. Yet none of them have achieve or even come closer to what he has done for this country. Even Kaunda could not cite one thing that is bad about Sata except that he is good as a minister but not as a president. RB is not even good as a mayor if we go by what he has done. I judge people by their works not by which chap disgraces them in public! How many blogs have been written about Sata and what they fear he can do. Not one of them talks about what he has done for the country – because all has been for the benefit of Zambians. During the last campaign the two important points I took from what he was saying were:
1.Setting up of hydro-power station in northern part of Zambia to supplement current supply of power
2.Establishment of another oil refinery for oil originating from Angola.

Hydro-Power Station
Current supply of power from ZESCO is insufficient hence the constant blackouts that are a daily routine in the capital city. I was shocked to land in a country in total darkness and yet we have enormous sources of hydro power. We live like rats or primitive villagers chasing for caddles every single day. MMD then proudly tells us, we are moving forward in development. It would be something worth talking about if the power shortage was as a result of major industries consuming all the power. But it is due to lack of planning and fore-sight. One more power station in the northern part would do wonders regardless of how many tourists come as a result of reduced visa fees!! Wake up, we need to move forward not deal on making this country any more primitive than it is today. Aren't we ashamed to visit other countries and you wonder how they have been moving and we have been going backwards?
Angola has better infrastructure than we dream about. Yet, it has been at war longer than we have been independent!
We need more and more energy for our industries and for sure, Sata has substance in his vision for a hydro power station in the north. What is that land doing if left neglected all this time?

Oil Refinery
INDENI is always down the greater part of the year. Thats not a secret. We have a refinery, but people in Livingstone find it cheaper to buy fuel from Botswana and even Zimbabwe (when it has). We are very expensive. There is a lot of oil being ferried from Botswana to Zambia on dug-out canoes. I have used this fuel, and for sure it is cheap regardless of what profit the people bring it in add on top and despite the risks! What has gone wrong with our country???
we are now backwards, primitive and shameless under MMD. We need to change our focus and see a future with the good priorities and brighter future for our children.

We need to judge these people based on what they can do. With RB, the efforts to rid this country of corruption will be reversed. A lot of current court cases with start being thrown out and slowly make way for kleptocracy to take over democracy that we have. He was the second mistake to this country. The first being Chiluba's second term.

RB will expertly mislead us to doom in a shortest time that we can imagine.

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.

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.