MMD has recruited its own assassins

MMD has recruited its own assassins
Written by Editor

SIMON Zukas says Rupiah Banda has lost the moral high ground befitting the status of a head of state, Republican president. Simon has gotten it wrong. Rupiah hasn't lost the moral high ground. One can only lose something that one had before. Rupiah had no high moral ground. He didn't enter State House with high moral ground.

Rupiah entered State House as a discredited politician whose whole campaign to power was characterised by tribalism or regionalism, corruption and intolerance. Therefore, one can say that Rupiah entered State House on a very low moral ground. But this is not to say Rupiah should not try to move away from the lower to the higher moral ground. After all, dialectics teaches us that development, progress is always from lower to higher.

However, we agree with Simon, this great and tireless freedom fighter, that Rupiah should try to gain high moral ground if he is to be effective and efficient as the leader of this country.

But we don't think this will be an easy thing for Rupiah to do or to achieve. We say this because Rupiah doesn't seem to realise that he is President of a country whose people are seriously trying to improve the way their affairs are managed by their representatives, a nation that is seriously trying to democratise its political and economic life.

Rupiah wants to run things like he is an emperor. Zambia is not a monarch where the emperor is the father of the nation. To suggest in any slightest way that the presidency of this country is metaphorically equivalent to fatherhood in a family, and that citizens are equivalent to children, is a dangerous form of paternalism fundamentally in conflict with the possibility of democracy in a modern political system. This is a failure to appreciate that the price of modern political order is calculated on the basis of human rights, and not obscure customs of convenience.

It should be very clear to all by now that Rupiah and his government have a lot of problems, and many problems lie ahead for them. They don't seem to know where they are headed, and that is dangerous. Rupiah's great achievement seems to be directionless leadership: he is trying very hard to be seen to be in control and this is why he is even now talking about being seen to be biting and biting deeply. But no one knows where Rupiah is leading to. We have all made many mistakes in what we do. But few people have been consistently wrong on all the great issues that today face our nation, as Rupiah is. Rupiah has no sense of urgency, priority and direction. He has failed to define the purpose of his presidency.

The only thing that is clear about Rupiah is that he is guided by the wish to destroy us and all those who seem to oppose or question his decisions and actions; and by the determination to entrench himself in power and seek re-election in 2011. This is certainly not a recipe for governing well. You cannot run an administration forever on such principles and motivation.

Simon is right when he says the MMD is no longer the same strong party because it has been split. So many things have changed in the MMD. And we are not saying that things should always remain the same. Change is an important part of life, and political parties that do not change die. But people shouldn't change to forget their principles, but to fulfil them and to keep their relevance. For a political party, change is an important part of gaining or regaining the nation's trust, to show the people that politics is not some byzantine game played out over screeds of paper but a real and meaningful part of our lives.

But the MMD of Rupiah doesn't seem to be more than a coalition, a motley assortment of contradictory elements brought about to win power and give themselves jobs and access to state finances and other resources. This is the one common idea or element that Rupiah and his friends in the MMD hold in common. But as we are starting to witness, with the passage of time, that will prove to be insubstantial glue. The signs of division may today be no bigger than a small fish in a jar, but they will grow.

Rupiah and his friends are too bossy, too contemptuous of other citizens, too self-satisfied for their own good or for others. The wheel of fortune turns and that which once appeared fresh and strong, with the passing of time goes to seed. Soon the Zambian people may need a rest from them.

There is need for Rupiah and his friends to start recognising the scale of their problems. They are increasingly becoming associated with the most disagreeable messages, thoughts, decisions and practices. And this must be understood and appreciated as a deeply felt distaste, rather than momentary irritation. And they should not dismiss it as a mere false perception. They are linked to corruption, harshness: thought to be uncaring about unemployment, poverty; and considered to be indifferent to the plight of workers and others losing their jobs every day. They are seen not to care about job losses. Rupiah's stated goal of seeing to it that The Post is closed, without caring what happens to the workers, bears testimony to this. Rupiah and his government are thought to favour greed as exhibited in their defence and embracing of the corrupt as long as they support them politically.

The MMD must in the very near future learn again to display the common purpose that is fundamental to the party's prospects. If they don't, they stand no chance of being re-elected in 2011. They are seen to be very arrogant and insensitive. And much of this is as a result of the personal mannerisms that are grating on the public after over 17 years in office.

Corruption has disgraced them in the eyes of the public, causing them to be seen as unfit for public service. And such distasteful perceptions can endure and do them harm for a long time.

They should face these issues head-on and deal with them. Rupiah's conduct so far has profoundly disappointed, disgusted many people who supported him in last year's elections.

The number of people disappointed with Rupiah is growing by the day. He is every day losing supporters and not gaining any. Rupiah's only discernible preoccupation seems to be the closure of The Post. But his hatred for us in understandable. We understand very well why the genuinely good intentions of The Post editorial work and its decision to invest in Zambian Airways, a company employing over 260 aviation experts of all sorts and in much need of capital, are sneered at by Rupiah, why there appears to be a permanent quest on his part to bring The Post down. Our own and only explanation is that genuine goodness is always threatening to those at the opposite end of the moral spectrum. And Simon is right in demanding for the President of this country to stand on a high moral ground. Rupiah is standing on too low a moral ground for him to meaningfully and progressively govern this country.

The MMD has taken a very big gamble with Rupiah. It is actually a senseless one. Rupiah is part of the people who destroyed, finished off UNIP. It was only after they had totally destroyed UNIP that they started talking of retiring from politics. And these are the type of people the MMD has gone to recruit to come and help destroy itself. There is no building or strengthening of MMD that these assassins of UNIP can bring to MMD. The only thing that we can be sure they will bring to MMD is its destruction.

Those who sponsored Rupiah in MMD used to go round saying they want to use him as a unifying factor, as a transitional leader to get them to 2011. Can they still say the same things today? What unity has Rupiah brought to the MMD? Is he really a transitional leader to 2011? Time will tell!

This is what happens when greed and vanity consume people and their political organisations. This is what happens when the will to sacrifice and struggle for that which is fair, just and humane is traded for vanity, greed and indeed corruption. This is what happens when principles are exchanged for political expediency. This is the poison that results from that combination. But who will drink this poison that they have produced out of the fruits of vanity and greed?