Maravi

Chief Mwamba counsels political parties over violence

Chief Mwamba counsels political parties over violence
By Moses Kuwema
Mon 19 July 2010, 13:40 CAT

SENIOR chief Mwamba of Northern Province has said the pronouncements of peaceful elections by the MMD and PF spokespersons will only be realised if the competing parties don’t send cadres from other areas into the constituencies where elections are being held.

In an interview, chief Mwamba of the Bemba people of Kasama said there was need to “lean on history” in order to understand the root causes of violence that had rocked recently held polls.

“In the first place, we harvested terrible misconceptions about the party in government and the opposition since the colonialists equated opposition with subversion, while on the other hand the government was considered as the oppressor. Consequently in the African context, opposition is regarded as treasonable and the party in government as the oppressor. We shall only free ourselves from the notion that everyone should think alike when the idea of the party in government and the opposition have been institutionalised in our minds,” he said.

Chief Mwamba said it was beyond normal human comprehension for competing parties to deliberately and purposely create a combustible atmosphere in which they delight to see the spillage of human blood.

This, he said, was being caused by sending trucks full of desperate and unemployed youths to go and maim, kill each other and other innocent villagers just for the sake of gaining parliamentary seats.

“And this means that there is need for political leaders to search for deeper roots than the mere mechanisms of unbridled useless false promises during election campaigns,” he said.

Chief Mwamba said political parties lacked the fundamental quest of political philosophy, which he said was the key factor in politics since it was necessary to discover the legitimate reasons for the support given to a political party.

“Our leaders do not have a clear philosophical orientation of where we should be tomorrow since they are in philosophical chasm or mental servitude of the neo-liberal agenda that charts Zambia’s destiny, and hence there is a conflict between rhetoric and reality,” he said.

He said most of the political parties were formed in 2001, mostly on Fredrick Chiluba’s third term bid and other flimsy reasons and, therefore, all the political leaders were on the same political waveband, which explained why they had resorted to insulting each other.

“…And the once respected and dignified office of the President has been diluted to nothingness because all sorts of lavatory language can be poured upon the chief executive and head of state by any cadre without any restraint whatsoever from the political leadership,” said chief Mwamba.

Labels: CHIEF MWAMBA, POLITICAL VIOLENCE

posted by MrK @ 2:47 PM