Saturday, May 17, 2008

Levy and Sata's new kiss, kiss policy

Levy and Sata's new kiss, kiss policy
By Laura Miti-Banda
Saturday May 17, 2008 [04:00]

Without question the story of the week, nay of the year is that of Opposition leader Michael Sata’s professed reconciliation with President Levy Mwanawasa. With all that has happened on the Zambian political scene since 2001, very few could have predicted that Michael Sata would ever extend a hand of friendship to his nemesis Levy.

But then in politics like in love, nothing is ever predictable. So now Zambia is trying to get its collective mind around this situation in which a man who, a few weeks ago, was in the habit of openly declaring his disdain for his political rival proclaims that that political rival is his new best friend. In no time, the former rival and head of state announces that he accepts this astounding offer of reconciliation.

The President in welcoming the new chapter of relations confirms what everybody has always suspected that he has for years hated the leader of the largest opposition party in the country. The extent of that hatred however has to be a little startling for many when put into words by the President.

Levy declared this week that Sata has made his life so miserable over his years in State House that the very sound of the voice of the opposition leader had become repulsive to the presidential ear.

The President confirmed too what many observers have stated many times that for his whole time in State House, he has been in campaign mode failing to get on with the business of running the country.

This he says has largely been because of Sata’s
incessant public attacks and confrontational manner. Well we are told all that is now in the past. We will now have a season of friendship, respect and shared political goals between these men so that at last the country can benefit from President Mwanawasa’s stay in State House.

Now of course every- body knows the circumstances that precipitated this monumental change of heart. It’s simply that when the Patriotic Front Leader had a serious heart attack that we are told could not have been managed by the medical facilitates within our borders, his sworn enemy quickly got him evacuated to South Africa for treatment.

That the president went out of his way to save Sata’s life is shown by the fact that he had to use his presidential influence to get over a couple of hurdles not least of which was that Sata did not have a passport. Levy had previously (through the Minister of Home Affairs, Ronnie Shikapwasha) withdrawn the passport for some funny little reason that sounded very much like the use of power to settle personal scores. The official story was something to the effect that Sata had acquired the passport by cutting corners after having claimed to lose the first one to a Chinese porter in a London hotel. An investigation therefore needed to be carried out.
As things turned out, the passport was returned to Sata while he was in South Africa. I guess that investigations have been laid to rest together with the hostilities between the two men.

Now it has to be said that it is not surprising that a man who has looked death in the face would consequently take time out to take stock of the way he has lived his life. At a human level, there is no question that Michael Sata needed to express his thanks to the man who saved his life and that from now on there would be some connection between the two of them.

I, as stated last week, will never be a fan of government’s evacuation policy until the medical facilitates that the ordinary people of Zambia depend on are improved to the point where those ordinary lives can be also be saved. Something in me rejects this unspoken policy that renders the lives of those that are not on the government ‘A-list’ expendable.

On the other hand, I do not fail to recognise that in deciding to fly Sata out, Levy showed a very commendable and very Zambian ability to put aside his personal differences with the Patriotic Front leader when crisis hit. No matter what anybody says, what Levy did is something that citizens will recognise as intrinsically Zambian and therefore respect in their president.

What is a little problematic is that Mr Sata has extrapolated his personal debt of gratitude to President Mwanawasa into party policy. Somehow Sata has once again failed to separate his person from the party he leads. What will be of particular interest is to see how the Patriotic Front itself deals with the change of heart of their leader.

Quite obviously Sata made the decision to put aside his hostilities with President Mwanawasa and the MMD on his own. In typical Zambian political party fashion, he made this fundamental announcement without informing and much less discussing it with his party.

I am very sure that like the rest of us, the PF leadership read about the monumental realignment of party policy in the press. Before they knew it, their president was shaking hands with Mwanawasa and promising him that he will from now on not criticise him in public.

Any points of disagreement it seems will be dealt with in private and the press will get no wind of it.

In the end, the party spokesperson was left floundering for words trying to spin the uncomfortable situation his party president had put him in, into “ a nothing to be surprised at’ situation. What will happen, I wonder, if the rest of the PF do not agree with Sata’s new position? Will they be brow beaten into submission? I guess Sata has plans for this.

What remains to be seen is how Sata imagines that an opposition party can operate without its differences of policy with the ruling party becoming public knowledge?


The point is that the kind of personal attack politics that Sata and Levy say they would like to put an end to, are horrible, empty politics that everybody would like to see ended anyway.

However, mutual respect and lack of rancour between ruling and opposition leaders does not entail that opposition leaders undertake to never criticise government.

It is the name of the game that opposition parties hold government to account so that the best interest of the country is always kept on the table. So yes it will be great to get rid of the unpalatable language between Sata, Levy and everybody else on the political scene. Individuals after all generally hide their emptiness in their ability to insult the person of their rivals.

That said however, we will be watching the new kiss, kiss policy that Sata and Levy are espousing with suspicion hoping that we will not be called to save the country from their new love

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1 Comments:

At 4:32 PM , Blogger MrK said...

This could lead to even more soul searching, as to what politics actually mean. What are the substantial differences between the MMD, PF, or for that matter the UPND and the ULP? Put another way, what if any or indeed all of them were to merge, would change about public policy, or the political landscape? They are all IMF appeasing, neoliberal freemarket parties, who rely excessively on their party president for their political identity.

What would have happened to the PF if Sata's heart attack had been fatal? Would the party wither away and it's remnants be taken up by the party in government?

There is a need for two things:

1) Local Politics

There should be a devolution of power from the presidency, toward parliament, the civil service and especially local government. Local politics is much closer to where people live than parliament, even in developed countries. Therefore, they can respond to local issues much more accurately and quickly. Local government must be empowered with 50% of national revenues. Government expenditures must be meticulously tracked - the same is true for government contracts. Which the MMD is making headway on, by the way.

2) A populist opposition party

Until the neoliberals see that just focusing on 'capital' and neglecting 'labour' (and 'land'), their economic policies are destined to pass the majority of the population by.

Economic development can be approached in such a way, that it puts the emphasis on everyday people as drivers behind the economy.

For instance, an emphasis on education will create many more future skilled labour, which can demand higher salaries because they produce more goods and services.

Land should be redistributed to the people. Every farmer should have 100 hectares and access (directly or hired) farm machinery. This will lead to a situation where tens (hundreds of thousands) of farmers have an income of at least $10,000 per year, which will transform rural areas and the demand for services in rural areas. It will also slow or reverse urbanisation.

 

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