By Paul Shalala
In Zambia, being aligned with the ruling party or the elite
is the desire of many. This status is usually attained when citizens join the
ruling party, befriend those in government or offer favours to those in the
corridors of power.
In every general election the country has had since it
reverted back to multi-party politics in 1991, politicians have been crossing
from one party to the other in search of acceptance, security, change of status
and opportunities.
In the first five months following the triumph of the
Patriotic Front (PF) in the September 2011 General Elections, various
politicians both from the former ruling Movement for Multi-Party Democracy (MMD)
and other political parties left their respective parties to join the PF. Some
of those defecting included senior MMD leaders like Goodward Mulubwa who was
the party’s National Treasurer and others from the party’s provincial
executives who joined the now ruling party which they had fought tooth and nail
and successfully beat in the past 10 years till it dislodged them in 2011.
But in the last three months, the defections seem to have
taken a different direction. This time politicians are leaving the MMD and
joining the opposition United Party for National Development (UPND) which
despite being smaller in size and having fewer numbers of members of parliament
than MMD, has swallowed many influential defectors. Three time presidential
elections loser Hakainde Hichilema has been at the core of these defections as
he hosts press briefings to welcome these new members.
One reason that can be cited for politicians ditching the
MMD is the fact that some Zambians do not usually like to associate themselves
with a losing party. Just like UNIP which lost elections in 1991, MMD is
suffering defections due to its loss of elections last year. Most people who
have left MMD are claiming that the party is divided hence its future being
bleak.
Despite the MMD and UPND being in a loose and unofficial
alliance both in parliament and on the campaign trail, defectors have continued
exiting the former ruling party and spilling filth on it when joining the UPND.
In recent months, a number of prominent MMD big wigs have left the embattled
party to join Hichilema’s UPND.
Edwin Lifwekelo, Edward Mumbi, William Banda and ‘popular’
comedian Thomas Sipalo (Diffikkoti) are some of the eminent figures who have
joined the rank and file of Hichilema’s organisation whose motto is to move
Zambia forward. Some of these have even been offered senior party positions.
But why are all sorts of people now flocking to UPND? Why
are former MMD members being embraced in UPND, a party they called all sorts of
names in the past decade? And why is UPND accepting them and further offering party
positions to some of them? The following passages will try to bring out the
possible reasons why the status quo is like this.
Quantity
Like any other game, politics has its own rules. One of
these rules is numbers. In politics, the more the numbers you have, the more
votes you have and the more power you acquire. It is this premise which to some
extent has led UPND to accept all those defecting from the MMD despite some of
them being controversial figures. UPND
is convinced that by accepting everyone who knocks at its Rhodespark
secretariat for membership cards, it will grow a mass movement which will help
it wrestle power from the PF’s ‘Donchi Kubeba’ machine in 2016 when the next
general elections are held.
Project a certain
image and win elections
By holding press briefings to unveil ‘big fish’ who defect
from other parties to join UPND, the opposition party is very much convinced
that it’s a better strategy to win hearts and minds of voters and make them
believe that UPND is the only alternative to the ruling PF. This image being
projected by the UPND does not go unchallenged because some of the people
unveiled by party president Hichilema at his numerous press briefings are
controversial politicians who still have issues of credibility in people’s
minds.
Greener pastures, opportunism
and convenience
It has been said by many that most people who defect in
Zambia are opportunists. Some politicians are known to have moved from one
party to the other without regard for the ideologies of the political parties
they are joining. For example, William Banda was in UNIP, he joined MMD where
he served as Lusaka Province Chairman before resigning early this year to join
UPND. Despite UNIP being socialist in nature, he left it and joined UPND and
MMD which are capitalist in nature. Another example is that of Edward Mumbi who
served as Secretary General of the PF, a seemingly socialist-inclined party.
Mumbi later joined capitalist MMD and now he is in UPND. Other examples include
Edwin Lifwekelo and others who have crossed parties in search of greener
pastures, opportunism and convenience. Lifwekelo, who was an outspoken and
pro-MMD ‘civil society’ activist, is now deputy spokesperson of the UPND
following his defection earlier this year. All these defections seem not to be
based on policy or principles but opportunism or convenience because one can
clearly see that the defectors leave a party with a totally opposite ideology
to the other they later join.
Quality and
credibility
When people defect to another party, they are expected to
bring value to that party. This is exactly what many UPND leaders expect to get
from their allies who are joining them. However, the credibility of some of the
defectors is questionable. Their quality too is questionable as some of them have
well documented backgrounds which do not earn them respect in society.
Therefore, their credibility is questionable. Some are known to be violent even
when they talk about peace in society.
Towards 2016
Elections
Despite the next general elections being four years and a
month away, the ground is already being set for a showdown. For the UPND,
defections are one of the signs that it is preparing for the next polls.
However, defections on their own are not enough to warrant an outright victory.
Some people are known to have defected today and tomorrow they are back to
their former party. The case of Paul Monga is one such example which I can cite,
the man has been in and out of UPND for at least three times. In the 2011
general elections, many politicians from the PF defected to the MMD but the
then ruling party ended up losing. Therefore, Hichilema and UPND shouldn’t bank
too much on the defections. They should campaign not only in the media but also
on the grassroots.
Conclusion
Defections or no defections, UPND has a high chance of
giving a good run to the PF in 2016. However, Hichilema and his lieutenants
should strictly scrutinize all those joining them as defectors. It is true that
HH needs these numbers to win as president after losing the past three
presidential elections but he needs to ensure that none of these people damage
his image to the voters. Appointing some of the controversial defectors to the
opposition party’s National Management Committee can have a negative impact on
the way his party may perform in 2016. Hichilema’s warm reception to
controversial characters like William Banda may have a negative impact on the
way people look at his credentials on the rule of law and respect for divergent
views due to the man’s history of violence. Just like the example seen in 2011,
defections don’t usually count in general elections. Their effect is usually
minimal which means the UPND should not spend more time celebrating the
defections but spend more time organizing the party on the grassroots.