Maravi

With or without pact, MMD is in trouble

With or without pact, MMD is in trouble
By The Post
Tue 13 July 2010, 09:00 CAT

There is no need for the leadership of the MMD to rejoice over the problems of the PF-UPND pact because this is nothing compared to their own problems.
With or without the Pact, the MMD runs a very high risk of losing next year’s elections if they do not deal with the many issues that have put them in conflict with the Zambian people. First, the MMD has become increasingly associated with the most disagreeable messages and thoughts. And this must be appreciated as a deeply felt distaste, rather than momentary irritation.

And they cannot dismiss it as a mere false perception caused by their political opponents or the media that is hostile towards them. They are linked to corruption and to harshness: thought to be uncaring about poverty, unemployment, healthcare; and considered indifferent to abuse of power. They are thought and seen to favour greed with a ‘devil take the hindmost’ attitude. Second, they are thought to be arrogant, insensitive and out of touch.

Corruption and the embracement of corrupt elements like Frederick Chiluba and his tandem of thieves has disgraced them in the eyes of the public. This has profoundly disappointed many people and disgusted many others. Their perception is of corruption and unfitness for public service. And such distasteful perceptions can endure and do them damage for a long time.

They have to face these issues head-on and deal with them instead of banking on the collapse of the PF-UPND pact for political survival. People need a rest from them.

They certainly need to do a lot about themselves. They need better and different organisation. With or without the Pact, many problems lie ahead for them. And they don’t seem to know where they are headed – that is dangerous. Rupiah Banda’s great achievement since he took over office in 2008 is directionless leadership: he appears to be in control, but no one knows where he is leading. All of us have made mistakes in our careers. But few people have been consistently wrong on most of the great issues that faced our nation as Rupiah has been. Rupiah seems to have failed even to define the purpose of his government other than just showing the nation how much they are in a hurry to enrich themselves.

The MMD has been guided by the wish to destroy their opponents; and by the determination to be re-elected next year. That is not a recipe for governing well.

We know that they have been trying very hard to find a way of undermining and destroying the Pact. All that one needs to do is read their newspapers – the Times of Zambia and Daily Mail – and see how much space they had allocated to this campaign. Probably theirs was fear of the unknown.

They were scared of what a united opposition can do to them and rightly so. What they didn’t know was that what they were scared of was just an idea, with no serious organisation behind it. The Pact is nothing but an idea for the electoral unity of PF and UPND. It is a pact brought about to win power.

That will to win power is the one idea that the members of this Pact hold in common. But we know that pacts of this nature run into serious problems with the passage of time – with the passage of time, that will prove insubstantial glue. The discord we see today in the Pact may be no more than a small crab in a jar, but if not well handled and with utmost honesty and sincerity, it will grow. Again, there is need for the MMD to realise that with or without the Pact, they stand a very high chance of losing next year’s elections.

They shouldn’t forget that despite the huge sums of money that Chiluba had diverted from state institutions and poured into the 2001 elections, the MMD can be said to have been defeated by UPND. And we have no doubt that UPND had won the 2001 elections had it not been for electoral fraud. And 2006 is not very long ago even for those with short memories. A poorly organised PF, at that time, nearly swept the MMD out of power.

What about the 2008 presidential elections? Who can doubt Michael Sata’s very good performance in that election? Since 2006, PF has been in total control of all the key urban areas of Zambia. And these are areas that are cosmopolitan, comprising people from all the regions of our country. This is a political party whose popularity has been growing at every election.

Moreover, what matters is not whether there is a pact or not but what type of political organisation and mobilisation of the masses of our people is there. Actually, under the current organisation of the Pact, the opposition may not do that well because its militancy is being consumed by intra-pact discords; more of their time is being spent on trying to outdo each other in this or that area and to assume or maintain hegemony over the other.

This does not maximise their collective effort. It actually undermines them and pushes them below what they would be on their own. And we have examples of this in this country. We shouldn’t forget that this is not the first pact this country has seen. We had a pact in 2006 involving UPND, FDD and UNIP. They had similar problems and lost the election. We also had the PF and ULP in the same year.

Unless the Pact is properly organised and made more effective, it will not do better than the individual parties would do. It’s either there is a better organised and more coherent pact or the idea is abandoned and each political party organises its own campaign in a more effective, efficient and orderly manner. Failure to that, PF and UPND and their pact are headed for a disaster.

The Pact as it stands today is certainly not an effective vehicle for winning next year’s election and the individual parties may do much better. We say this because so far, the approach of the Pact has been one that has done more to destabilise collective effort and reduce the militancy of their cadres and supporters.

And there is no need for the Zambian people to lose heart and think everything is lost if tomorrow they were to wake up and find that the Pact idea has been abandoned. What they should lose heart over is to wake up one morning and find that the PF and the UPND are no more, they have disbanded.

This would definitely give the MMD a very big opportunity of continuing to destroy our country without being challenged. The opposition does not begin and end with the Pact. A pact may be desirable but will only be of value if it is effective and improve the collective efficiency of the parties involved in it. But to date, the Pact has not exhibited any of that.

The only thing it has succeeded in doing is to raise public interest and hope in it. But again, their leaders seem to have let them down because the Pact is not what they would like it to be or what they think it should be. Hoping for a pact will be hoping for the best. But as they hope for the best, they should prepare to win next year’s elections with what they may consider to be the worst scenario – that of PF and UPND going it alone. And it’s not true that the opposition can only win next year’s election under the Pact. Truly, a well organised pact can make their victory easier but they still can win as individual political parties.

And there is a track record to back what we are saying. An honest review of the 2001, 2006 and 2008 elections will confirm what we are saying.
So it’s folly for the MMD to think that if the Pact crumbles, then their continued hold on power is assured. Let them continue to think like that and they will have a rude awakening.

It is also unjustified defeatism for the opposition and their supporters to think that if the Pact is gone, then all is lost – none of their political parties will be able to defeat the MMD in next year’s elections. We understand how much hope they had placed on this pact. We know it is hard to understand, but sometimes painful things happen – what we desire doesn’t materialise.

It’s all part of the process of life. But the future doesn’t belong to the fainthearted who give up or collapse when things don’t turn out the way they wanted them to be; it belongs to the brave. Who ever thought the PF of Michael and his friend Guy Scott in 2001 that only managed to win about three per cent of the vote in that year would be the PF of 2006, 2008 and today that cannot be written off in any election?

Quick fixes sometimes work but not all the time. This pact, in its current form and character, is a quick fix that may work or may not work. As such, it will be unwise for anyone to pin all his or her hopes on it. Hope for an effective pact but prepare to win next year’s election with or without it. As for the MMD, they should also prepare to lose next year’s election with or without the Pact because it is very possible for them to lose under either the Pact or PF and UPND going it alone.

Labels: 2011 ELECTIONS, MMD, PF-UPND

posted by MrK @ 2:49 PM