Congratulations Mr President but…
By Reverend Alfred Sayila
MAY I through your respectable newspaper express my views on the just-ended general elections held on August 13 and at the same time offer my guarded congratulations to President Hakainde Hichilema for retaining his seat for the second time, hoping indeed this will be his final tenure of office.
To begin with this was the most controversial general election I have ever witnessed in my entire life and the history of this country from the time it attained its independence from Britain in 1964. At 77, I have been through six major general elections in 1964, 1991, 2001, 2011, 2016 and 2021 but none had its results hotly disputed like the recent polls.
While everything looked peaceful from the day Parliament was dissolved and a 90-day campaign period declared, it was a day or so before actual voting started that all hell broke loose. Heavy military presence, detentions, intimidation, blackmail, killings and other abnormal happenings begun to unfold as if war was about to start. The air around some major towns in the country was frightening and intimidating.
The heavy militarisation of the entire voting process rendered unwarranted fear among some people resulting in potential voters not showing up at various polling centres, which partly contributed to the apathy that was witnessed where almost two million out of the 8.7 million registered voters failed to cast their ballots.
Coming to the announcement of the presidential results by the national results centre of the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) at the Mulungushi International Conference Centre in Lusaka, it was another circus of confusion which left much to be desired. In the worst case scenario, the national electoral body failed to meet the 72-hour deadline it had given itself to conclude the exercise from the time polling ended at 18.00 hours on August 13.
It is understandable for an unknown reasons anyway that some polling stations opened their doors to voters late but this does not justify announcing and declaring of results after more than a week with some constituencies still pending. The way the ECZ officials conducted themselves during the process of verifying of results from various totaling centres and the subsequent announcements raised a lot of suspicion.
The piecemeal announcements made after long intervals seemed to suggest manipulation of figures in favour of their preferred candidates and political parties. What with the results of one constituency being announced twice and which cannot pass for an administrative oversight and only officials of the electoral body can answer that question.
But I will tell you what, anybody who has studied advanced psychology and is able to read body language knows there was something deeper than what the ECZ officials were trying to portray to the watching public. It is that same deeper happening which delivered the controversial results and has brought the country thus far.
In the way presidential results were being announced it was a foregone conclusion as which of the candidate would carry the day because of the voting pattern and abnormal disparities in figures. The evidence that could not be denied for a fact is that the voting pattern divided the country between the North-East and North-West regions as had been the case during the colonial divide-and-rule British Overseas Government.
Personally, I will not be surprised if there was to be any honest re-count of ballots that some of the figures from the constituencies for presidential candidates were not a true reflection of how people voted. I suspect some of the figures were deliberately geared up or down according to the game plan. However, I will not dwell on this issue for too long except to state the fact remains that some of the figures that came through are disputable.
The most interesting thing although everything is now in the past after the winning presidential candidate was announced and has been sworn in is the way the ECZ Chairperson Madam Mwaangala Zaloumis announced the results and declared the winner. It was all done like an unstoppable roller-coaster before a security detail whisked the officials away to safety without giving the percentage breakdowns. Only later did the public know that President Hakainde Hichilema had gotten 60 percent of the total presidential votes cast.
Even that figure is debatable to me and others. Surely it does not take a politico-social scientist to know that such a high percentage for a sitting president whose popularity has been on the wane because of economic factors and many people crying for change can muster such landslide in a general election. This is not possible under normal circumstances and as things presented themselves, none of the aspiring presidential candidates would have gone past the 50 percent +1 threshold.
In fact, the reason that the ECZ strong woman entertained no questions from the public during the reading of results was an attempt to shut out any queries that could arise from her handling of the electoral process. At one point, she directed the security personnel in the house to hound out a person who wanted to know why the opposition had been left out in the verification of results from constituency totaling centres as had been agreed earlier on. That was democracy at its worst!
Anyway the die has been cast, elections are over, someone is in the driving seat, petitions are in court but the country has to move on. The only question that still lingers is how are people of different tribes and regions going to live with one another after such a divisive general election? This is where President Hichilema and his chosen leaders face a daunting task to bring healing in the nation if they are truly committed to the One Zambia, One Nation motto.
I am afraid the just-ended election once more reared its ugly head of tribal, ethnic and regional politics of the pre-independence era and if this is not properly handled, the country can easily descend into political a quagmire where hatred and acrimony will rule the roost. It is not just a matter of pronouncing figures and projects , it is walking the talk of a leadership that has a real national character.
Already the democracy which Zambian leaders have been harping about has suffered in the eyes of the international community after the just-ended elections marred with a lot of malpractices, which may affect donor support if the whole truth is not made known. But there is also need to seek true reconciliation and forgiveness with those who have been hurt with the outcome of the polls. This may call for an unconditional release of those who have been detained for political reasons but have supporters within and outside the country.
President Hichilema may continue to enjoy the support and protection of the armed forces as their Commander-in-Chief but should not forget he is a product of politics whose public put him in that seat to deliver for their common good. He should also understand that the major opposition to his leadership is not any single opposing party but the people themselves.
There will always be those who want to eat from under the table of any sitting president and these will never speak ill of the leader who feeds them but talk good things even when on the ground things are not rosy. It is these same kind of people who in the dark stab the leader in the back and run away from him when he is no longer in the seat.
I vividly remember when the late President Kenneth Kaunda lost power in 1991 all his lieutenants left him and he became a lonely man without anybody at his side apart from his own family members. This has happened to every leader after him because political office is usually a thankless task for everyone who ventures there.
I know that power to some people can be too sweet for them to let go when time is up and others have waited for too long until it becomes bitter to them. Again it is easy for any person to be drunk with so much power that they forget they are only human with an ultimate end without any permanent legacy. But as one British legislator put it many years ago, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely!
Here let me remember the saying which my good friend the late President Levy Mwanawasa (May His Soul Rest In Peace) was fond of quoting that those whom God wants to destroy, He first makes them become mad. Yes, these are leaders and ordinary people who out of greed are on a trajectory of destruction without them knowing.
My prayer is that in his last term, President Hichilema should not only pull the country’s people together but deliver on his promises he made in every district and province he visited during the campaign. People want to see the universities, international airports, skills centres, referral hospitals, road networks, mass employment, cattle restocking, continuous power, food sufficiency, low prices, farmers being paid within three days, increased social transfer money, further increase in Constituency Development Fund (CDF) and more in his “salt sana and niulule” campaign speeches.
This is a tall order for President Hichilema and requires a man in a tropical weight suit like him to deliver on everything he has ever promised the Zambian people from the time he ascended to power in 2021 to his re-election last month. Any failure on his part to fulfill his promises will earn him the label that has been circulating on him for some time that he is a liar. He cannot talk about free education, school feeding programme and CDF because these have been there from previous administrations, he simply improved on them.
Lastly, I implore Zambian people to remain united and not allow cheap politics and politicians to divide them. They should remember that political leadership is temporary and that is why the country has changed four political parties and seven presidents from the time it has existed as an independent and sovereign State for 62 years now.
For those in leadership of any kind, they need to take a leaf from what the great British 19th Century poet William Shakespeare once said that the world is a stage where everyone comes to play his role and then disappear. And also the saying that whatever goes up must eventually come down so will any leadership under the sun. Time, age, sickness, removal and death shall always determine a leader’s hold to power. The best one can do when they are in that seat of authority is to remind themselves that that someone better was there before them!
The law of Karma which is simply reaping what you sow means anyone who for personal gain cheats, schemes, blackmails, kills or does anything that is not good to humanity will face the same consequences in this life or thereafter because under Heaven all living things are subject to divine assessment and judgment.
The author is a former journalist, lecturer in journalism, clergyman and now a political activist.
