The hare and the tortoise
ONE of the common childhood stories we grew up listening to often in the neighborhood was that of the rivalry between Hare and Tortoise.
Hare always laughed off tortoise each time the latter challenged the former that he could outrun him in a fair race. One day, Hare could not simply take in the derision; Let us compete today he counter challenged his friend. They did.
The village gathered to witness the event which everybody dismissed would be one sided. Soon after the race was flagged off, Hare leapt into a shot like a bullet. As expected within minutes, he was out of sight of the crowd and long away from tortoise who dragged himself on a normal pace.
When Hare covered what he thought was a good and safe distance, he slowed down to check the back to see whether the other contender was anywhere near. “He cannot get this far just now,” he comforted himself.
Believing that Tortoise could never catch up with him, he decided to have a nap under a tree. But tragically, the siesta turned out into deep sleep. Tortoise managed to drag himself past sleeping Hare and eventually got to the finish line. When Hare woke up he noticed that his rival was being received by a cheering crowd at the end of the track.
He leapt for the second time to try to catch up with his colleague, too late tortoise was being crowned as the winner of the race.
The above story has recently been coming to mind whenever I hear remarks that President Hakainde Hichilema with his United Party for National Development (UPND) will have a field day as they have no challenger in next year’s general elections. There is no opposition, the narrative has asserted.
This perception has been strengthened by the fact that in most of the by-elections conducted in the last four years, the UPND has been emerging victor. Some have argued that this victory has nothing to do with the fact that the ruling party is popular. Rather the real reason is that the main opposition party, the Patriotic Front (PF), has not been participating.
The PF has not been participating not out of want but because of the situation the party has found itself in with two factions and the political setting recognisng the preferred and safer group while ignoring the more forceful one.
Winning by-elections in Zambia’s political landscape is not a reliable yardstick to conclude that a party is popular and guaranteed victory at the general polls. The Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) kept winning most by-elections in the run-up to the 2011 elections but lost to the PF on D-Day. The PF itself won by -elections but lost to the UPND in 2021.
In a democracy, a single party whether in power or not should never wallow in self-deceit that it is popular and thus it could carry the day in the next general elections. That is dangerous and misleading.
The real opposition in a multiparty setting are the people, not political leaders or their party. It is the people who decide. The great danger is that the people can back anyone and anything to get rid of an adversary. In 1991, the MMD did not win because it was popular. The people simply used the organisation to remove the United National Independence Party (UNIP).
It has been rightly argued that any other person other than Frederick Chiluba would have won the 1991 election because the people decided so. They decided that President Kenneth Kaunda and UNIP needed to rest.
In 2011, President Michael Sata and his PF were not a popular lot to win the elections. In any case, President Rupiah Banda who took over from Levy Mwanawasa after he (Levy) died performed very well. The economy was buoyant, the Kwacha stable against the United States (US) dollar, foreign direct investment (FDI) at its peak, yet RB lost to Sata.
By 2021, the UPND had been in opposition for 23 years, there was no evidence to suggest that the party routed out PF at the elections because it was a popular one. The people simply used the UPND as an alternative to get rid of the PF which many had become fed up of because of governance transgressions and other political flaws.
Unfortunately, those governance transgressions and political flaws have persisted in the last four years clearly setting the ruling party against the people who are the voters. The opposition may look divided but that is normal political diversity in a democracy. But a similar goal can unite them; the quest to remove the sitting government. That is what has been happening in the past.
It is further misleading to think that the opposition is absent when a new party such as the Socialist Party (SP) has been winning in some ward by-elections and when it has lost, the party has come second.
How can one ever think that there is no opposition in Zambia when a congregation can boo and openly deny a Member of Parliament (MP) of the ruling party in full view of the president attending a Sunday church service? Remember when chips began falling down for Kaunda and UNIP, the resentment began with booing KK in public. The ridicule culminated into pelting the old man with debris at a football ground in Lusaka.
Opposition parties may not all come together to form an alliance against the UPND but even a merger between PF and the SP may not be easy to defeat at the polls next year. The reason is simple, PF has a countrywide presence while SP has made formidable inroads despite being a new player in the political arena. If people saw the merger of the two parties as the saviour and rallied behind them, the UPND would need good defence.
The likelihood in the next few months is that more political parties may come together in an alliance to challenge the status quo, which may place the UPND in an uncomfortable posture.
In the circumstances, there is a lot that the UPND can still do to protect the turf. There must be a number of positives that the party may have scored, it is important to continue with them. But more critically, the party has to deal with grey areas in governance and political flaws.
It needs to address public complaints about perceived selective justice. Many are of the view that the fight against corruption and accompanying arrests are politically targeted. Whether real or imagined, the complaints are negative and have left a dent on the ruling party and its governance record. The UPND signed a pact with the people on August 12, 2021 after an avalanche of promises. How many of those promises have been fulfilled? That is the question the people of Zambia will seek an answer when they go to polling stations on August 13 next year. It is the people that make the formidable opposition to the ruling party. The earlier the UPND realises that the better, otherwise the ground is quite mire.
Hicks Sikazwe is author of Zambia’s Fall-back Presidents, Wasted Years and Voters in Shadows. A former Deputy Editor in Chief of the Times of Zambia now Communications and Media Affairs Advocate based in Ndola. Comments 0955/0966929611 0r hpsikzwe@gmail.com.
