Maravi

Avoid petty politics, Dipak urges Rupiah's team

Avoid petty politics, Dipak urges Rupiah's team
By Chansa Kabwela
Friday August 29, 2008 [04:00]

Former commerce minister Dipak Patel yesterday urged Vice-President Rupiah Banda's campaign team to avoid petty politics devoid of real issues because Zambians are looking for serious economic managers to sustain President Levy Mwanawasa's legacy. And former home affairs deputy minister Edwin Hatembo said it was cheap for Vice-President Banda's campaign team manager Benny Tetamashimba to say that finance minister Ng'andu Magande has no support in Southern Province.

Reacting to Tetamashimba's statement yesterday that there was no need for a nationally televised debate for all MMD presidential aspiring candidate, Patel said the difference between Vice-President Banda's campaign team and that of Magande was that the latter's team was dealing with real national issues while the former was dealing with petty politics with no ideas on how to sustain President Mwanawasa's legacy.

Tetamashimba's statement read: “We have read the approved statement from Hon Magande through his campaign team in which he wants the MMD party candidates to appear for a televised debate to the Zambian people to see who is the best candidate for president in the MMD.

“I am the official campaign manager for RB. When NEC elects him as our candidate, and I may be biased in my judgement being in this position. But I am not that kind. Let me be judged by what I stand for, the truth under whatever circumstances.

“Since Mr. Dipak Patel is not MMD but campaigner for Hon Magande, I ask him to get clarifications from the national secretary Hon Dr Katele Kalumba or the chairman for elections Hon Mike Mulongoti whether what he is proposing is the MMD way of NEC choosing a candidate. The constitution of MMD has no clause of how to select a candidate and those who don't know the procedure should ask the national secretary. NEC makes all decisions in between the conventions and Mr Patel is supposed to know this.

“The candidates will, if the national secretary advises, only speak to the NEC on 5th September 2008 who have the power to choose a candidate for this by-election and not for 2011. NEC will not choose a party president or fill vacancies.

“Mr Patel must inform the MMD which region will fully give Hon Magande the vote when his own Southern Province regards Mr Hakainde Hichilema as their preferred son. Hon Magande is not popular in Southern Province and he shouldn't mislead that he can defeat Mr Hakainde Hichilema in Southern where the MMD has no single seat and Mr Magande ran away from standing in Southern Province for fear of losing.

“Let Mr Patel and Hon Magande tell the nation whether MMD must throw away its constitutional advantage in the coming by-election for self-centred people. Genuine people who love MMD have decided to wait for 2011 and the MMD must look to the MMD loving people than those who are greedy and self-centred, as we shall be going to the convention.

“Does Mr Patel think that if Mr Magande was in the sandals of the Acting President Rupiah Banda and was replaced to stand as presidential candidate in the coming by-election by an easterner, Southern Province would have ignored the embarrassment to Hon Magande and vote for RB? If the answer is no, does Hon Magande think that the easterners could vote for Hon Magande when their own who was so close and only needed to complete the term was forced out by selfish people?

“The party leaders in the provinces and their NEC members have stated clearly that they want Acting President R Banda to stand in the by-election to complete the term of office of the late President. Are these people who signed that they want RB going to vote against him in NEC when we know they all have integrity.

“Hon Magande will be honourable with his campaigners to unite the party by supporting the Acting President to stand in the presidential by-election. Ministers should not bring in the issue of betrayal.

Let Hon Magande not mislead the nation and his supporters to bring disunity in MMD by claiming that he was the appointed heir. The appointed heir was the one the President appointed as Vice-President. We have to support His Excellency the Acting President R Banda as MMD presidential candidate for the MMD to easily win the election.”

But in response, Patel - who is member of the Elect Magande Campaign Team - said he was forced, yet again, to respond to Tetamashimba who started this debate about President Mwanawasa's successor although people from Vice-President Banda's campaign team deliberately accuse him (Patel) of having insensitively started the debate.

“I am again forced to react to Tetamashimba, who in-fact began the issue of succession in his comments to Radio QFM, when we were in a period of mourning,” Patel said. “I now refer to Tetamashimba's statement of today (yesterday) with regards to our challenge for a nationally televised debate. If his candidate is serious, he should not have any fear to a debate and let all Zambians see for themselves what his favoured candidate has to offer and let the people of Zambia judge for themselves as to the competencies of all candidates.

“Why does Tetamashimba not lay bare all the accomplishments of his candidate in the MMD? Since Tetamashimba is the official campaign manager of RB and suggests that I am not an MMD member, perhaps he can tell us as to when his candidate became an MMD member. But to ridiculously suggest that Hon Magande has no support from Southern Province is naïve and foolish. “In-fact he has national support. This support is not from “engineered petitions”. He represents national politics, not tribal politics.

He is not soliciting support based on tribal alliances. He is soliciting support based on Mwanawasa's legacy and policies that need to be continued.

“He is soliciting support based on performance, competence, experience. Perhaps Tetamashimba should find out if it is true what Hon Machila has said that, “In our last full Cabinet meeting, there was an indication of who President Mwanawasa did not consider as his successor and all of us know this person by implication”.

“This is pre-eminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, candidly and fearlessly. From all MMD presidential aspiring candidates, if we could first know where we are and where we want to go and why, we could better judge and make informed decisions on what to do and how to do it, and the type of leadership that is required, to not only carry the vision and dreams of our beloved President Levy Mwanawasa but to ensure that, not only is it carried forward but sustained for the long term good of all Zambians.

“We are now into the 17th year since the MMD economic and social policies were initiated with the declared objective and promise of putting an end to poverty and achieve citizens' economic emancipation and economic growth. It is very disheartening to hear in this day and age, when people talk of ‘tribal alliances’, when a son of the soil of Africa, Barrack Obama who had the “Audacity of Hope” is today a presidential candidate in the United States of America.

“Surely, the criterion for selecting leadership has to go beyond one's tribe or race. Are the virtues of honesty, integrity, knowledge, performance and experience among many other attributes not important? Are issues of generational change not important? Is our national motto, One Zambia One Nation, not important? Is, for an elected politician, to aspire to the highest offices of the MMD and a government wrong? Is being an unelected politician to aspire to a high office ethically, morally or politically right?

“What will the people of Zambia; the opposition say if a MMD candidate is an unelected politician in this most unusual circumstance that we face today? Is prudent economic management not important anymore? Or, is obtaining power at any cost with tribal alliances more important? Is passing on the baton to a new generation of Zambians now a taboo? “Magande does not think and believe tribe.

He thinks Zambia and Zambians. He thinks economic growth. He thinks citizens' economic empowerment. He thinks good governance. He thinks end poverty. He thinks women's empowerment. He thinks better sanitation and water for all. He thinks better roads, housing, education, health and infrastructure. He thinks more agricultural production. He thinks good governance. He thinks develop Zambia.

“Unfortunately, in the very recent past, there has been something very crude and heartless and unfeeling in haste by some, elected and non-elected politicians, to succeed President Mwanawasa for the sheer sake of gaining power and hopefully the ultimate office, that of the President.

“We must all remember that we are not the Republic of the Ngoni, the Republic of the Tonga, the Republic of the Bemba, the Republic of the Lozi, or any other one tribe. But we are the one and only Republic of Zambia for any and all the tribes of Zambia, including all the minority races in Zambia.

“An ominous dark cloud is above Zambia, we have lost to God a great son, a leader of Zambia, President Levy Mwanawasa (May His Soul Rest in Peace). The MMD has to now elect a new leader. Magande wants to be President, first because he can lead our country to the required economic standing that will set us apart in Africa.

“He has the capacity and experience to build a better Zambia for all. He has the energy, time, experience and age on his side. For most of his life, he has been employed in service of Zambia. Under President Mwanawasa, like many others in Cabinet, he believes in the ‘New Deal’ for Zambia, and like many others helped begin to deliver the ‘New Deal’.

“Yes, in execution of his very difficult duties as Minister of Finance & National Planning, it has not always been possible to please all the people all the time. And this has sometimes been the reason for perceived differences between him and some of his Cabinet colleagues. It was never personal and never shall be. It was always in the greater good of Zambia and not an individual.

“It was always team work. It was always the shared vision of a ‘New Deal’ for Zambia. Fortunate as we are in our new-found beginning of economic prosperity, we still remain fragile for much of the economic vision and dreams of President Mwanawasa. It still needs to be vigorously carried forward and implemented, in the period, what would have been the remaining term of his office till 2011 and beyond. It is therefore in the interest of every citizen imperative that we maintain this vision.

“Magande has had the honour to be one of the economic advisors of our beloved and distinguised President, Levy Mwanawasa, and as such, to hold up in eternal glory, his hands in the economic and political reforms he had initiated. Magande should be untrue to himself, to his promises and to the declarations of the MMD party platform upon which he was elected as a Member of Parliament, if he did not make the maintenance and enforcement of those reforms a most important feature of what he would like to get done as the President of Zambia.

“President Mwanawasa's reforms were directed to abuses of office, good governance, and citizens' economic empowerment, rule of law, integrity and economic growth of all and for all of Zambia. So, Magande not only says to the MMD, but to all Zambians, 'we are indeed economically moving toward an era of good feeling', but he also realises that there can be no era of good feeling save among men and women of goodwill.

“For these reasons, Magande feels justified in believing that the greatest change that we have witnessed under President Mwanawasa has been the change in moral climate of Zambia. Strong hearts and helpful hands are needed, and fortunately we have them in every part of our beloved country. There are some national questions in the solution of which patriotism is needed and must exclude tribalism.

“Distrust of capacity, integrity, and high purposes of the Zambian people is not an inspirational theme. Dark pictures and gloomy forebodings are worse than useless. The prophets of doom never will be the builders of our Republic. If there are those among us who want to make our way more difficult must not be disheartened.

The path to progress is seldom smooth. New, not old things are often found hard to do. We are again undergoing the same ordeal, as we did as Zambians in the past, for having to fight for change, for having to find the new and not the old or the same.

“Yet, difficult as it is, the new task before us today, differs from the tasks set before by our beloved President Mwanawasa, who preserved the dignity of our Republic, the spirit in which these tasks must now be undertaken and these problems faced. Magande has faith that we shall not prove false, nor betray the memories, desires, hopes, dreams and vision of President Mwanawasa. He left us a splendid legacy that we now enjoy.

“And now, in our turn have an assured confidence that we shall be able to leave this heritage unwasted and enlarged to our children and our children's children. To do so we must show, not merely in crisis, but in everyday affairs of life, the qualities of practical intelligence, of courage and endurance and above all the power of devotion to a lofty ideal. “Magande knows and understands the tasks before us.

Magande realises to the full, the responsibility which it involves. We are to beware of all people who would turn the tasks and necessities of our nation to their own private profit or use them for building up private power, perhaps not for the immediate but certainly in the near future.

“Magande has not built nor ever asked for any ‘tribal alliances’ or pacts, instead he has sought alliances and pacts based on policy and building upon the foundations of President Mwanawasa's legacy. There is no shortcut to the making of these ideals into realities.

Zambia has witnessed in the past the futility and mischief of all ill-considered remedies for political, social and economic disorders. We are all mindful today as never before of the friction when choosing a leader, and we must learn its causes and reduce its evil consequences by sober and tested norms.

“One cannot stand in this presence and be unmindful of the tremendous responsibility. But with the realisation comes the surge of high resolve, and there is reassurance in belief in the God-given destiny of our Republic. As the MMD decides on its presidential candidate, the question that the national executive committee of the MMD has to ask is: who shall live up to the great trust, to change for the new and not the old, to putting in office an elected or unelected politician?

“These are not the days of triumph; these are days of dedication. These are days for unity of purpose. The MMD should muster not only the forces of the party, but of the Zambian humanity and their hopes and desires. People's hearts wait upon us; people's hopes call upon us to say what we will do. And remember, as Abraham Lincoln once said: 'A house divided against itself cannot stand'.”

And Edwin Hatembo said it was shameless for Tetamashimba to say Magande had no support in Southern Province. He said the majority of NEC members in the province were behind Magande.

He said the MMD needs a candidate in Magande who has no scandals, who is popular, an economic manager, a non-tribalist and an experienced man with a lot of both local and international experience.

“The international community respects this man because he is a hard worker and a man of integrity. When other candidates are adopted, the opposition and the media will go to town to expose how scandalous they are. I also have some of their scandals, as you know I am a former minister of home affairs.

I have the archive of scandals,” Hatembo said. “They will dig their past in the parastatals they served and in other government ministries where they practiced tribalism. Magande has a clean record and will win MMD this election. So Teta should just shut-up. He has no moral right to speak on behalf of the people of Southern Province.

Let him just continue imposing his candidate on the people of North-Western Province. As far as we are concerned in Southern Province, Magande is the man and I am talking to you from Livingstone, the capital of the province. And ask Teta to tell us if his candidate surrendered his UNIP membership card.”

Labels: DIPAK PATEL, MAGANDE, MMD, PRESIDENCY, RUPIAH BANDA

posted by MrK @ 3:54 AM