UPND ponders pact with PF

UPND ponders pact with PF
Written by Lambwe Kachali
Saturday, November 08, 2008 6:31:58 AM

UPND secretary general Tiens Kahenya on Wednesday advised his party to consider forming an electoral pact with the Patriotic Front (PF). And Kahenya said as long as the electoral law is not amended, it will be worthless for the opposition to continue participating in elections.

On Wednesday, reliable UPND sources disclosed that the party was pondering on how it could work with the PF ahead of 2011 general elections.

Sources said the party top leadership had now realised that had they formed an electoral pact with PF as suggested prior to October 30 presidential election, President Rupiah Banda and the MMD would not have won the election.

The sources said a private meeting was held by some UPND members to discuss how they could work with PF.

"So, there are actually plans of working that out and UPND wants to do that early," the source said.

The source said the party also wanted to carry out a post-mortem in order to identify what exactly went wrong for Hichilema to come in third position in the last elections.

The sources said the party was worried that Hichilema lost in some parts of Southern Province, which was his stronghold.

But when contacted, Kahenya said the proposed electoral pact prior to the October 30 election failed to materialise because the two leaders [Sata and Hichilema] did not trust each other.

Kahenya said while it was true that the general membership of both UPND and PF were in favour of the electoral pact, there were doubts that if one of them was given a chance to rule for three years, he might not step down in 2011 once given prerogatives of power because power was too sweet.

"So, this was a matter of lack of trust because the people were willing to work together but for the two leaders. My advice to the two leaders [Sata and Hichilema] is that they should swallow their pride and put Zambia and people's interest first," Kahenya advised. "Zambians should not suffer just because both leaders want to go to State House."

However, Kahenya said although an electoral pact could have driven the opposition to victory; there would still be confusion on how to share positions because both parties did not have time to discuss such issues.

"Much as we know that the major problem was with the top people, there was no time to look at other things such as sharing responsibilities of governance. You have to look at the manifesto of PF as well as the UPND manifesto, see the differences and then remove suspicions. As you know, when you are in pact and as you continue campaigning, you need to propagate same message to the electorate. PF's message has been tax reduction and more money in people's pockets while we believe in improving the economy through free education, free agriculture input, more employment and end to poverty. So, we didn't have enough time to discuss all these things."

He observed that a pact would be an important tool to remove MMD from power in 2011.

"Of course, the 2008 presidential election was consequential and there was no time because if there was much time, we could have called the church to talk to our leaders. But in this case if a pact is to work, arrangements should start now," he said.

Kahenya also said before everything could be done, the UPND would first conduct an election post-mortem.

"As we look forward to 2011 elections and if people think the best way to defeat MMD is to seek partnership, then that's good. But more to that, Zambians should accept that the electoral law is weak; its prone to manipulation and as the NCC [National Constitutional Conference] resume sitting, my advice is that as a country, we should come up with a strong constitution to create autonomy in the Electoral Commission before the next general election," Kahenya said. "As the situation stands now, the political playing field is not levelled in Zambia."

Kahenya charged that President Banda violated the Electoral Code of conduct and no amount of complaints from the opposition were considered by the ECZ.

"Now even lodging your complaints against MMD candidate is irrelevant. It will also be irrelevant in future to be participating in these elections if all the political loopholes that lead to rigging are not sealed," said Kahenya.