Maravi

Institutionalising political parties

Institutionalising political parties
By Editor
Thursday August 02, 2007 [04:01]

For some time now, our people have wished for a viable opposition to keep the government of the day accountable to its people. This is the ideal situation. But unfortunately, for a long time to come, it does not seem that Zambia will enjoy a time when our opposition parties will play a role that is expected of them.

From 1991 when Zambia returned to a multi-party system, the ruling MMD has continued to enjoy weak opposition from our various political parties. To some extent, this was designed by the MMD. But to a larger extent, the opposition parties are to blame.

The main reason for this is that most of our political parties are not built into institutions. They are built around individuals and as a result these parties shrivel as soon as their founder or ‘owner’ shrivels; they die as soon as the ‘owner’ dies.

We can count many political parties that were born after the MMD was formed in 1991 but died within a short period of time. We have the National Party in mind, Agenda for Zambia and the Zambia Democratic Congress, among others. These parties did not last. Much later around 1998, United Party for National Development (UPND) was born under the leadership of the late Anderson Mazoka.

A few years later when the MMD was rocked with internal quarrels arising from Frederick Chiluba’s desire to go for a third term, the ruling party disintegrated and two political parties under two former Republican vice-presidents were born. These were FDD under the leadership of Lt Gen Christon Tembo and Heritage Party under Brig Gen Godfrey Miyanda.

A combination of UPND, FDD and Heritage Party brought about what seemed to be a promising formidable opposition in the country. And in the last few months of Chiluba’s leadership, these parties offered quite some effective checks and balances. In fact, it was widely believed that if these three parties came together as one, the MMD could have been defeated during the 2001 elections.

But because these parties were designed to serve individual interests, they could not merge into one force. And immediately after the 2001 elections, we saw them begin to crumble one after another. Today, FDD and Heritage Party seem to only exist on paper, while UPND is just a shell of itself.

This is because there are deliberate efforts by founders of these parties to personalise as opposed to institutionalise these parties. As a result, these parties cannot outlive their founders or owners.

This is what we are beginning to see happening with the opposition Patriotic Front (PF).

Judging by last year’s general election results, it cannot be denied that PF is or was the strongest opposition party, at least going by those results. But from September last year to date, we do not think PF can confidently boast to hold that position in the country’s political affairs anymore. Evidently, things have been gradually falling apart in PF. And before long, there will be no PF to talk about and, therefore, no opposition to the ruling party for checks and balances.

This is not to say the other political parties count for nothing. What we are saying is that these other parties counted for something at some point but no longer do because they have become ineffective and inefficient. They have weakened themselves, thereby rendering themselves irrelevant.

This is a worrying trend which must be checked by those involved in the game of politics if their envisaged roles are to be played effectively. PF president Michael Sata today is running his party like personal business. He does not seem to appreciate the need to institutionalise PF. That is why he pays little or no attention to the manner in which he conducts the business of the party. For him, everything should start and end with Sata, the founder of PF. In fact, his members of parliament and councillors are indirectly directed to revere him. Sata thinks these members of parliament and councillors owe it to him.

Yes, in a way they do because it is PF that sponsored them. But Sata would do well to remind himself that these men and women he is trying to treat like children were voted for by their electorate and so they are people’s representatives. Besides, the successes being scored by PF are a result of collective efforts and not Sata’s lone effort. We have heard of instances where Sata has belittled these men and women publicly. Sometimes, he even refers to them as boys and girls. He forgets that some of them are grandmothers and fathers.

He always wants to have it his way because as far as he is concerned, he is the owner of the party and so everyone has to dance to his tune. Only last week, the Lusaka deputy mayor publicly protested. He complained that there was so much interference from Sata that as councillors, they did not feel free to operate in their positions. Before then, there was some dust raised over former mayor Susan Nakazwe who was subsequently expelled from the party under circumstances which many of our people did not appreciate.

Today, we are carrying another story displaying the cancer that is about to spread in PF. If this is not checked by a serious review of Sata’s style of leadership, PF will sooner than later increase the size of our archive folders because there will be no PF to write home about.

This is not to say Sata should not instil discipline in his party members and leaders. It is how he does this that matters. Depending on how he plays this role, Sata can either gather or scatter the sheep. If he chooses to scatter the sheep, he will be a sheperd without sheep or a leader without followers.

If this happened, it would spell doom for democracy because democracy cannot thrive in the absence of an effective opposition. A combination of numbers from the opposition parties is making a difference in our National Assembly today. The ruling party cannot just do as they please. They are always mindful of the opposition. That is why there is need to deliberately strengthen the opposition by all the players involved. This can only be done by way of institutionalising the parties as opposed to personalising them.

Any institution or party that is not institutionalised, that is not firmly established around certain principles for public good, has no capacity to stand the test of time.

Labels: EDITORIAL, PARTIES, PF, UPND

posted by MrK @ 3:31 AM