ZAMBEZI A FAVOURED REGION NOW
…HH shouldn’t moan about his people’s past persecution – Simutanyi
By Favourite Kalando
PRESIDENT Hakainde Hichilema is forgetting that the residents of Southern, Western and North-western provinces are privileged groups of people in his government, says political analyst Neo Simutanyi.
Dr Simutanyi said a particular group of people (Zambezi group) the President claimed to be victimised in the past were now privileged.
He was commenting on Hichilema’s hate speech depicting Southerners as victims of ethnic persecution at a political campaign rally in Choma, Southern Province, last week.
“So, there was an expectation that President Hakainde Hichilema and his government, the UPND, would not do the same thing as the predecessor who sidelined certain groups. So, there is a perception, and I think maybe to a great extent, the perception is correct that while UPND and many of us complained of the exclusion by excluding significant groups of people, this practice has not changed, has not gone away,” Dr Simutanyi said.
He said Hichilema’s claims that people from his region were victimised before he became president were unpresidential and should not be allowed.
He said the Zambezi group was now privileged in terms of job appointments, government contracts and other privileges.
“This particular president is highly partisan. You see, he abused a particular narrow group of people from where he drew his support, the Tonga-speaking, the Lozi-speaking and others. That’s wrong. It’s wrong. I think it’s wrong to say that publicly. If that is what he stands for, he shouldn’t say it publicly because we would like to believe that he represents everybody. When he begins to say a particular group of people is being victimised, a particular group of people is being what? What it means is that in the next president of this country, we all do the same,” Dr Simutanyi said.
He said it was no longer a perception of exclusion, but people saw what was happening in government.
“People still see that people from certain regions are excluded and, to be specific, people are seeing that people from Southern, Western and North-western are being privileged over others from other regions,” Dr Simutanyi said.
He said in a democracy, it was not wrong to appoint people from one’s region and support base.
Dr Simutanyi, however, said what was wrong was to promise to change the system but fail to do so.
“Now, in a democracy, there is nothing wrong with that. There is nothing wrong with appointing people who come from your region or who support you. Nothing wrong with that. What is wrong is having had an electoral platform of trying to correct that,” he said.
“If you go to the [United] States, for example, you find that Donald Trump, most of the people he appoints are his friends, relatives and so forth. This happens everywhere, and these people like Donald Trump don’t apologise for doing that.”
Dr Simutanyi said Zambians were complaining because Hichilema had promised to correct the situation, which he saw as dangerous while he was in the opposition.
He said failure by Hichilema to correct that had created anxiety among the people of other regions.
“If that was not the case, if, for example, UPND did not say that when we come to power, we will end this thing of people from particular groups coming together, they would not be apologetic about it because the whole reason for competitive politics is that those who win govern the way they want to govern,” Dr Simutanyi.
He said it was not wrong for any political party to appoint people from the region where its support base was.
“So, in other words, appointing people exclusively from areas where a party has support is not wrong,” Dr Simutanyi said.
He said although it was not wrong, it was not right that a party that promised to correct it was doing the same thing it had promised to stop if elected.
“I want to be very clear there. I’m saying that if there was no declared intention on the part of this by UPND that they would not actually do anything about correcting what was wrong with the previous regime, then we expect that every regime will govern according to their dictates, meaning that they will appoint people according to their support,” Dr Simutanyi said.
He said late president Michael Sata had done it, too, and was not apologetic about appointing members and people from the north in his government.
“He never apologised. He simply said this is what I have. I have to appoint people who come from the areas where my party has support. He said that and no one blamed him. Why is the late former president Edgar Lungu being blamed? Lungu is blamed because he talked about unity. He talked about unity when he didn’t promote it,” Dr Simutanyi said.
