Sondashi and Rupiah

Sondashi and Rupiah
Written by Editor

It is too late for any MMD member, including Ludwig Sondashi, to say Rupiah Banda is not part of the MMD; that Rupiah should not hijack the MMD. Rupiah was sponsored by the MMD and he represented the party during the October 30 election.

Today, MMD is the ruling party. So Rupiah is part of the ruling party, and not UNIP. This is the position. It cannot be changed unless Rupiah wants to return to UNIP.

Therefore, those men and women - especially from the MMD - who want to campaign against Rupiah on those lines will be wasting their time.

What they should concentrate on is criticising Rupiah on merit. Let them look at his track record of performance and criticise him on that. If he is not meeting expectations of the party, that should be the ground to kick him out or not to anoint him with the highest position in the party. Let his failure be his downfall.

And looking at the issues Sondashi has raised in his letter to MMD national secretary Katele Kalumba, they are all legitimate issues requiring serious reflection and determination from the leadership of the ruling party. In fact, these are not new issues. Some of these issues dominated the October 30 presidential election campaign. Issues like corruption, during the national executive committee (NEC) adoption process, were even raised by some party members.

In life, it is good to be clear about things; to be principled. But remember that during the campaigns for October 30 elections, so many Zambians raised the same issues against Rupiah that Sondashi is raising today. However, Sondashi paid no attention to this. If he did, he did that quietly. In fact, he went ahead to campaign for Rupiah and defended him against some of these allegations.

So what has changed today for Sondashi? The fact is Sondashi, like many other politicians, makes calculated moves to suit his political agenda at any given time. When it was politically convenient for Sondashi to support Rupiah, he did just that. And today that support does not fit in Sondashi’s scheme of things he has chosen to denounce Rupiah and his leadership.

In his own words, Sondashi is saying he couldn’t raise these issues before elections and this is now the right time to do so because Rupiah is settling down in office. If his intention is to make critical observations about his party in the spirit of constructive criticism aimed at strengthening their fledging political organisation, why wait until the damage has been done? Today, Sondashi is saying Rupiah secured the adoption as MMD presidential candidate through corruption. But what is surprising is that Sondashi, as one of the many men that stood against Rupiah in MMD, did not complain about corruption in the NEC when the campaigns were hot. He did not make it an issue out of allegations of corruption against Rupiah.

In saying this, we are not in any way belittling or dismissing the issues Sondashi has raised about corruption in MMD, among other things. These issues are real and must be decisively dealt with.

What we are trying to say is that our people must be principled and defend their principles at all costs, even if doing so means risking their jobs or lives. It is said that a person who believes in nothing is as good as dead.

How does Sondashi expect to be taken seriously when he says that, “it is only in MMD where you can find a person without a vision being elected as President of the country” when he, in October last year, stood on a campaign podium, calling on Zambians to vote for Rupiah as he was the only capable man to lead Zambia? Have Zambians forgotten that Sondashi threatened to beat up anyone who was going to mention the name of Rupiah’s archrival, Michael Sata, in his presence?

When he addressed a campaign rally in Solwezi on September 29 last year, Sondashi advised Rupiah to ignore what some newspapers were writing about him.

He said: "My brother Rupiah Banda, don't listen to what is being written in some newspapers because it is what they used to do even for your predecessor. They used to write bad things about him but what they are writing about the late president [Levy] Mwanawasa, it is as if he was an angel…He [Rupiah] will make a great leader."

Everything seemed alright with Sondashi and Rupiah at that time. He didn’t complain in any way.

However, we take note that Sondashi is today advising the MMD to learn from the ANC in South Africa, SWAPO in Namibia and FRELIMO in Mozambique where hard-working members of these political parties are rewarded by being considered for promotion to positions in government.

Assuming Sondashi had been rewarded with such a position in government or anywhere else, would he have said today what he is saying about Rupiah and the MMD? We doubt.

We say this because we did not even know that Sondashi had fundamentally differed with Levy Mwanawasa on some issues. But because Levy is dead, Sondashi wants to tell the public how he disagreed with Levy on these issues, when we know that even after Levy fired him, Sondashi elected to remain silent. He said nothing against Levy and his leadership or administration.

Having principles is a very difficult feat to achieve in Zambian politics. This is because the few that display courage in defending good causes in national interest are always victimised. Those in government positions are fired while those engaged in private sector businesses have their businesses frustrated. However, those who are driven and motivated by principles are not worried about such developments. They would rather suffer or get inconvenienced, in defence of their principles, because opportunism has got very short legs to stand on.

There are so many people today who are singing praises and foolishly defending Rupiah just because he has given them jobs or they expect favours from him. They are doing this against their inner convictions that Rupiah is not Zambia’s saviour, that he is a failure who is taking this country nowhere. Others are complaining quietly that even the proposal by some MMD leaders to have Rupiah as acting president has been corruptly sponsored, in a similar manner his adoption as MMD presidential candidate was done. But they are not doing anything about this because they are cowards, opportunists.