UPND and The Post

UPND and The Post
Written by Editor

It is said that freedom of expression is a cornerstone of democratic rights and freedoms. And that this freedom is essential in enabling democracy to work and public participation in decision making.

We also know that some countries and individuals have made progress in recent years in terms of securing this freedom, although enemies abound.

Only last week, Gwembe UPND member of parliament Brian Ntundu asked the MMD government to seriously sort out The Post now that the election is over.

Ntundu says: "MMD should be strong enough to sort out such media organisations. In this case, I will not fear, I mean The Post newspaper. There is no way the media can become so strong to an extent that it can insult everybody including the head of state, and you are there smiling. If you have problems in sorting out The Post, we shall do that for you. The Post is stinking, it's useless."

It seems Ntundu and UPND have not yet sanitised themselves against hatred of The Post.

We bear in mind that this is not the first time Ntundu and UPND have launched attacks on The Post, accusing us of being disrespectful and so on and so forth.

We are not scared of attacks because, like water on a duck, they fall off our backs.

However, what raises concern is the manner in which these threats of sorting us out are done.

Contributing to a heated debate on a motion moved by Namwala UPND member of parliament Major Robbie Chizhyuka, which was urging the House to adopt the report of the committee on information and broadcasting, his colleague Request Muntanga said legislators should be above such pettiness.

Muntanga says: "What has transpired, Mr Speaker, is an indication of what bad reporting can bring. Because of the press, we will end up having fights in this House."

In fact, even the chairman himself, Maj Chizhyuka, who this newspaper has given a lot of coverage, seems not to be comfortable with us.

It is interesting to hear the issues coming out of UPND.

First, the same committee had solicited input from the media on several issues pertaining to advancement of the media. The media organisations made their contributions ranging from the Freedom of Information Bill, ZNBC Act and several other issues. It did not deal with coverage of elections. It was surprising that now much of the debate for the committee has centred on coverage of the last elections. It was even much more surprising to hear members of parliament debate as though the only issue to be raised was sorting The Post out.

Yes, we understand the bitterness of losing an election. We understand the money lost and the resultant debts. We understand the anger. However, what we don't understand is what wrong The Post has done to UPND, what unsettled debt The Post owes UPND.

Yes, we understand that there are those who, for one reason or another, fear The Post. We do understand their fears because whereas others can hide their filth, we will not. Whereas they would want to smear others with their filth, we will not want to be smeared. What is even more surprising is that an opposition political party - UPND - is the champion of this whole debate. UPND seems to be in the forefront of pushing for these reforms that would see The Post sorted out. So what are they telling the people? That is the way they want to control the media in this country?

If they can treat us this way when they are in opposition, what would be the situation if they got into government and had the state-owned media at their disposal and didn’t need our coverage?

Examples abound of how media organisations in certain countries like Zimbabwe, Sudan, Eritrea, Iraq and other countries have been sorted out. Is that what UPND wants?

It is interesting to see UPND spokesperson Charles Kakoma distancing the party from the statement made by Ntundu.

Kakoma says Ntundu, like other members of parliament, held their personal views.

Kakoma says their views did not reflect the views of the party and those were not policies the party stood on.

He says UPND would continue to have their own issues but that did not justify the closure of the institution.

But we cannot reduce the whole issue of sorting out The Post to Ntundu.

We have not forgotten that there are many others in UPND who have shared Ntundu's position on The Post.

Several other people in UPND such as Major Robby Chizhyuka share the feelings of Ntundu.

In the last presidential election, UPND members are on record saying we were giving Patriotic Front more coverage than their party.

Their party president, Hakainde Hichilema, has made similar allegations.

Hichilema has in the past accused The Post of colossal hatred bent on destroying his career and the party.

It is interesting to note how such a once vibrant party can begin to bring itself to such low levels.

First, even the party's campaign programme was secretly guarded.

We even went to an extent of asking them to bring their own pictures of their rallies, which we were willing to publish. They did not bring any. Why?

And there are editions of our publications which can be compared to other publications in the country and see if there is any other newspaper in this country that has given more coverage to UPND than we have done - including in the last election.

We accept the problem with UPND. It seems UPND has this inflated opinion of its popularity. They can over-value their assets or wealth, but they cannot succeed in doing so when it comes to popular support.

It is not right for them to try and blame others for their low popularity. They should be realistic in their overestimation of themselves. They are over-valuing themselves. Yes assets can be over-valued. You can get a few pieces of land from some chiefs somewhere and value them in billions and consider yourself a very rich person, but you can't do that with popular support. That is different from running a political party. And UPND should be frank with itself.

If they want to shoot themselves to the political graveyard, we will not be part of that.

But as we have said before, if it benefits UPND to get us sorted out, let them go ahead. If the grave of The Post will help nourish their political fortunes, let them take it to its grave quickly.

If our politicians have problems or irritations, and these may be many and legitimate, with The Post or any other media, the solution is not to devise laws that will curb press freedom, but to broaden the level of public discourse so that citizens can better sift through the chaff of misinformation and rhetoric to find the kernels of truth.

To those who want and wish to sort us out, we are ready - we have always been ready