Maravi

Patriotic Front crisis

Patriotic Front crisis
By Editor
Thursday December 13, 2007 [03:00]

The Patriotic Front is headed for a serious crisis over the National Constitutional Conference (NCC). The NCC may prove to be a divisive issue not only at the national level but also in many of our organisations. There are quarrels in many organisations, even among those who have no problems with the NCC, over who should represent them at this conference. Why? The main reason, it would appear, is money.

Those who are going to sit on the NCC will walk away with not less than K300 million at the end of this process. This may not be a large sum of money for some of our people, but it is certainly gigantic remuneration for most of the people who are going to participate on the NCC.

The temptation to throw away any other considerations and go for this money is too big for most of our people. Very few of our people will throw away an opportunity to earn over K300 million in less than a year. Anyone who, for any reason, ignores this reality is being naïve.

The crisis that is emerging in the Patriotic Front over participation on the NCC is primarily as a result of this huge payout. We are not saying everyone who has accepted to sit on the NCC is doing so because of money. What we are saying is that for most of our people, the pay is too attractive to ignore.

And it is high time Patriotic Front president Michael Sata realised this fact and responded to it prudently.

In “What Should Be Done” Lenin, that great revolutionary thinker and politician, said the fundamental idea in politics is that, one must not be too stiff-necked, too harsh and unyielding; that it is sometimes necessary, to avoid a split to yield even to those one thinks are wrong or are violating standards of discipline and to anarchistic individuals.

It would appear to us that, one way or another, Sata must yield to those members of parliament, mayors or councillors from his political party who have registered or intend to register as participants on the NCC.

Yielding is legitimate and essential in two cases: when the yielder is convinced that those who are trying to make him yield are in the right – in which case honest political leaders frankly and openly admit their mistakes – or when an irrational and harmful demand is yielded to in order to avert a greater evil.

What we are saying actually is not a novel idea, it amounts to no more than the not very novel piece of commonplace wisdom that little annoyances should not be allowed to stand in the way of big pleasure, that a little opportunist folly and a little anarchistic conduct is better that a big party split.

Participation on the NCC, given the huge financial rewards that go with it, cannot be difficult to justify. And because of money all the offended forgot their mutual scores, fell into each other’s arms and shared the cash that the government has put on offer to those who accept to sit on the NCC.

In these circumstances, it will not be possible for Sata to win – at least for now. Money has altered the balance of political forces over the NCC. And if Sata does not realise this, he is headed for a big political defeat and humiliation.

There is need for a tactical retreat if he is to avoid a big political cost. He had created a balance of power required to determine the outcome of this process but he now seems to be losing it very fast. Why is this so?

It is simply a failure of a proper tactical approach. If he could determine the outcome by simply creating the right balance of power and giving the MMD and its government a chance to understand their disadvantageous position and the need to negotiate and compromise, he went for an all-out political fight that might prove to be very costly with incalculable political costs.

This is because all big political battles have a price. There is still room for Sata to limit or mitigate the damage. Expelling all these members of parliament, mayors and councillors will not do any good to the Patriotic Front or indeed his own political aspirations.

Sata has no sensible choice but to compromise, to give some concessions to the members of Patriotic Front who have opted to defy his directive and to close his eyes to the violations of discipline and yield to the desires of these people. We are not advocating indiscipline in our political parties; we are merely stating the realities that prevail in the Patriotic Front today. We are very aware of the needs for party discipline.

When we were young revolutionary students, we were taught that within the ranks of the people, democracy is correlative with centralism and freedom with discipline. And that these are two opposites of a single entity, contradictory as well as united, and that we should not one-sidedly emphasise one to the denial of the other.

That within the ranks of the people, we cannot do without freedom, nor can we do without discipline; we cannot do without democracy, nor can we do without centralism. We were taught that this unity of democracy and centralism, of freedom and discipline, constitutes democratic centralism. And that under this system, the people enjoy extensive democracy and freedom, but at the same time, they have to keep within the bounds of party discipline.

We don’t know if our political parties today can affirm anew the discipline of the party, namely: the individual is subordinate to the organisation; the minority is subordinate to the majority; the lower level is subordinate to the higher level; and the entire membership is subordinate to the central leadership, the executive committee, the central committee. Whoever violates these articles of discipline disrupts party unity.

We were taught that the requirement of party discipline was that the minority should submit to the majority. If the view of the minority has been rejected, it must support the decision passed by the majority. If necessary, it can bring up the matter for reconsideration, but apart from that, it must not act against the decision in any way.

We were also taught to obey orders in all our actions and never to take away a single needle or a piece of thread from the masses and turn in everything we have won.

This is what we were taught at that time by our political commissars. We don’t know if this can be applicable today to the politics of the Patriotic Front and other political parties in our country.

We think for now Sata should focus much more on the survival of his political party. And survival, we believe, is the ability to cope with difficulties, with circumstances and to overcome them. Sata needs to overcome this impending crisis in the Patriotic Front.

Labels: CORRUPTION, NCC, PF

posted by MrK @ 4:23 AM