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Not every graduate can make a good president – HH

Not every graduate can make a good president – HH
By George Chellah
Sat 23 Jan. 2010, 04:00 CAT

UPND leader Hakainde Hichilema yesterday said it is not true that every graduate can become a good president.

Reacting to the National Constitutional Conference's (NCC) adoption of the degree clause for presidential candidates, Hichilema explained that people do not go to school so that one can become president. He said if the clause is targeted at an individual then it is wrong.

"This clause if the delegates of the NCC are targeting an individual that is wrong. What we must learn from these issues is that, we must all the time act in national interest, on matters of the constitution, on matters of subsidiary laws...we must always think about the greater Zambia, the bigger picture, the greater good," Hichilema said.

"Then you will find that we will not be perceived to be making decisions to disadvantage an individual or a group of individuals in the process advantage somebody else, that is wrong. We must be magnanimous...the challenge of leadership is such that any one of us when you are given an opportunity to lead, think big, think broad, think wide because if you make wrong laws they will follow you they will catch up with you."

He stressed the need for the nation to focus on leadership that has a vision.
"Leadership that will ensure that this whole subject of education is dealt with if we didn't deal with it in terms of not providing education opportunities for our population. Forget about the presidency, we don't go to school so that I become a president. We go to school so that our children can have the skills to get a job, they can have skills to run their own businesses, they can have skills to understand matters of society...not just for the presidency," Hichilema said.

"We must begin to focus on the visionary leadership, which the MMD clearly has failed. Rupiah Banda is a graduate will you say that he is delivering? As a graduate I can tell you that it is not true that every graduate can become a good president. It is not true that every non-graduate can become a good president.

"What you need is certain minimum requirements, what are these? To have vision, a bigger picture for development, to have the love for the people. If you don't have the love for the people, you cannot deliver at a presidential level."

He said targeting individuals would never be right.
"We must look at the broader interest of society. We must love society, we must love our community then we can provide leadership," he said.

He said the current NCC is a troublesome one.
"We are very much aware of that. We have been aware of that from the beginning. It's a matter that some of us made a decision to continue the fight. We could have stayed out we took a decision to continue the fight. But we are aware that it's a troublesome NCC.

You know what I mean even on the 50 per cent plus one," Hichilema said. "We must allow the voters, we must allow the people of Zambia to decide the type of leadership they want. That is really my beginning point. If they want a country that is developed they must relate the choice of leadership to a country they want to see. But it's entirely up to the people of Zambia to make that decision that is what democracy entails."

He said people must begin to move away from petty interests.

"We must look at a greater good for the people of Zambia. We must not actually try and make laws that will discriminate particular individuals purely because we don't like those individuals. I will give you an example; there was an issue of Archie Mactribouy...the issue of motor vehicle theft. That law was passed that anyone who is accused of having stolen a motor vehicle will be locked up without bail," Hichilema said. "And Mactribouy because it is said he had issues with those who were in leadership at the time he was accused of a motor vehicle theft. The law was changed to simply target Mactribouy.

Mactribouy was locked up... you know he died. We lost a citizen because of pettiness, because of vindictiveness. In 1996, this constitutional debate we are having was changed by the MMD leadership at that time, their intention was to prepare first and fore almost to stay in office forever.

"Their intention was along the way to take out competition, who was one of the competitors? Kenneth Kaunda, they created the citizenship clause, which may have been good because they were targeting an individual it looked bad. They also changed the constitution to bring about this dreaded simple majority, because they wanted to go for the third term."

Labels: CONSTITUTION, HAKAINDE HICHILEMA, NCC, PRESIDENCY

posted by MrK @ 10:45 PM