HH Should Have Been The Republican President, But…

By Christie Mubanga Mwape

Who is to blame? Is it the late Mazoka, Saki, Bembas or Himself.
Part 1
HH is a refined man in terms of quality education and he has proved his business acumen, though many Zambians have doubts because of the business role he played in the privatization or liquidation of some of the Parastatal companies. Given his profile, personal intelligence and achievements he is definitely one of suited men for the Job. But the following political hick ups that gave birth to his party, his political career has continued to cloud his political image,
1. PARTY TRIBAL FOUNDATION
From the very beginning the way UPND was organised created a great potential for serious regional problems and contradictions. At the core of UPND has been Southern and Western provinces, or put in more precise terms, it has been a party whose main support base lay with Tongas and Lozis with some fragmented support in North-Western Province. This in itself meant that any weakening of the cohesion between the Tongas and their traditional cousins, the Lozis had the danger of seriously impairing the party’s capacity and this is what we are witnessing today.
UPND drew support from other provinces by suggesting that they rotate the presidency of this country among our various tribes in order to stop the tribal voting or one tribal ruling all the time. They said non-Bemba people raised concerns if other provinces could not produce a credible president at any given time.
It was proposed the Presidency should rotate among the five major tribal provinces. These are (1) the North-Western (Luvale, Kaonde and Lunda groups), (2) the Western (Lozi group), (3) the Southern (Tonga, Ila Lenje and Soli group), (4) the Eastern (Ngoni, Chewa, Nsenga etc group) and (5) the Northern (Bemba, Mambwe, Lunda, Namwanga etc group).
Lusaka and Copperbelt provinces could not properly be defined as tribal provinces. So there couldn’t be need for the Presidency to rotate to them. They said if we had done this rotation of the Presidency since 1964, this time there would have been almost no tribal tension. Kaunda would have ruled for ten years only up to 1974. A Tonga (Mainza Chona for instance) would have ruled up to 1984. Then an Easterner (say Reuben Kamanga) would have taken over up to 1994. This time we would have had a Lozi, and next (after 2004) we would have left the people of North-Western Province to field a candidate. After that we would start all over again with Bembas, then Tongas etc. It we had done this, all the major tribes would have been content by now, and this tribal voting would not have occurred. So it was no longer about abilities but tribe.
2. SAKI vs HH
After the death of Mazoka, and bearing in mind their succession plan which wasn’t written down, it was obvious Sakwiba Sikota as a Lozi Veep was going to replace Andy. HH needs to correct the foundation of his public political leadership in the UPND. HH has until now not cleaned the dirty political cloud of tribalism that he and his tribesmen unleashed on unsuspecting non-Tongas like Sikota and Chisanga, who were at that time, Vice- Presidents to the late Mazoka. When concerned people mention this element, it does not mean that they hate him, no; they just say this in good faith and they know that HH has the capacity to clean his tribalism record.
The tribal tag that UPND carries today ensued from founder members.
Sakwiba Sikota charged that UPND was TRIBAL. And another UPND vice-president Patrick Chisanga said he was certain that the late Anderson Mazoka was turning in his grave when he looks at the culmination of events in the party that he founded.
And UPND spokesperson Given Lubinda resigned his position of chairman for information and publicity.
During a press briefing at Lusaka’s Mulungushi International Conference Centre in 2006, Sikota – a losing UPND presidential candidate – said he wanted to be part of the vision that was for all.
“I always believed that we are going to see a UPND free from corruption and tribalism. It’s evident from the events that occurred that corruption and tribalism in the current UPND is rife and that’s basically what has driven us out. We want to be part of something that is not corrupt and tribal, we want to be part of something that is for all,” he said.
Sikota said when Mazoka fell ill, a group of people ganged up to make his life as acting president extremely difficult.
“A group of fundamentalists and tribalists began to gain ground after the death of Mr Mazoka. These tribalists were losing in all our provincial assemblies. It is surprising that this same set of people who were rejected had 80 per cent of the support from the same people that rejected them. How did they suddenly become popular? I ask you what happened?” Sikota asked as the crowd responded, “It’s because of blood money!”
Sikota said Hichilema’s camp starved delegates that did not support his candidature.
“The fundamentalists started sending emissaries that ‘declare your support for Hichilema and you will receive food’. They starved people to try and get votes. Is this the kind of leadership you deserve? A leadership, which will discriminate against certain people?
Sikota said the tribalism and fundamentalism in UPND started at the Mazabuka meeting where they disqualified him from the UPND presidential race on account of his tribe.
“They started saying remove Sikota because he is not Tonga. They said let us look for a Tonga that we should support. At that meeting was born the candidature of one Hakainde Hichilema,” he said. Sikota said the UPND convention was characterised with massive intimidation, corruption, bribery, tribalism and thuggery.
“The VIP lounge became a centre at which bribery was practised at a large-scale. What makes me sad is that this issue of bribery was being engineered by my two colleagues in Parliament. What will happen if such people are in government?” Sikota asked. “The only thing that was missing in Hichilema’s camp was a machete that was used in the Rwanda genocide. But this machete was replaced by the ceremonial spears we saw, we saw spears at the elections.” Sikota said he has agreed to sue on behalf of two ladies that were beaten by Hichilema’s cadres because he has always stood against injustice.
“I have met Hichilema since the elections. I met him yesterday, I met him so that I can gauge whether he will denounce bribery, corruption, intimidation and tribalism and also to see whether he would be man enough to admit this or apologise to the two ladies for what happened. But when it was raised, he took no personal responsibility or apologise for what happened,” Sikota said
Indeed his public political ascension to the throne of UPND Presidency, which was based on tribalism, has left a hurting political scar in the minds of many voters. In addition, his public humiliation of his tribal cousin Sikota left many Lozis to have no respect for him. He may have branches and supporters in Western Province; the political wounds he inflicted on Sikota permeates through many Lozis and these need to be healed if he intends to get some good votes from Western Province. HH needs not only to apologize to the BRE and its traditional leadership in Western Province, but also to the entire nation at large as regards the way he ascended to the UPND Presidency. Time may seem to have past, but past, especially hurting, feelings do not fade away such easily in the hearts of people if they are either potential or existing voters.
3.ALWAYS WANT TO LEAD
The third dirty political cloud that HH needs to clean is that of always wanting to be a leader and not a follower.
To be continued…

Posted by Editor on November 12, 2014. Filed under POLITICS. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.