Maravi

The Pact

The Pact
By The Post
Fri 24 Sep. 2010, 04:00 CAT

The Patriotic Front and UPND electoral alliance is a troubled one.
And this is more so because it is an electoral pact built on the shifting sands of evasions, illusions and opportunism. There is no enduring alliance that can be built on this basis. And those who want this alliance to succeed have to seriously try and address these issues if they have to harbour any hope of this pact working.

Some weeks ago, we raised concerns about the way the PF-UPND pact was being constructed. Specifically, we told the public that there were fundamental difficulties which were being masked and hidden. To us this was wrong because people’s hopes should not be raised when no real work is being done to address fundamental issues on which the success of their Pact depends. At that time, we urged the leaders of the Pact to mask no difficulties, mistakes, failures and to claim no easy victories. We also advised them to hide nothing from the masses of our people, tell no lies and expose lies whenever they are told. This is the only way that a sustainable pact can be built.

A partnership in any undertaking that is based on the lies and half-truths is not sustainable. It is only a question of time before the cracks appear and the reality of the quality of a relationship is exposed. This is true in business, but also true in politics. In other words, the only foundation upon which any lasting relationship can be built is truth, honesty and integrity. These qualities demand that the partners are first and foremost true to themselves about who they are and what they bring to the table. After they have done this and understood themselves honestly, they are then in a position to negotiate truthfully. This is so because when you understand yourself, it is easier to make the other side understand you. But this is impossible if one is dishonest or opportunistic because an opportunist cannot afford to be sincere in his negotiation and deliberation and give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar.

Opportunism by its nature entails taking to oneself that which belongs to Caesar. And when this happens, it should be expected that Caesar will fight back and defend that which belongs to him. Clearly, this is a recipe for conflict and confusion and not a recipe for a working alliance or pact.

Partnerships are forged in order to pool common strengths for the benefit of the parties involved. A partnership that is forged to disadvantage any of its members in any way cannot last. This is because such a partnership goes against the very logic of partnership. In the context of our politics, it is important for those who are claiming that the only way to succeed in defeating the MMD is to form an electoral pact which pools the strengths of the opposition do not lose sight of the logic of partnership. Partnership is supposed to add something to a party that joins and not take away what it already holds. This requires a level of dignity and honesty that does not seem common in our politics today. We say this because if the political parties are going to try and form a pact that is going to waste time discussing obvious things, then their destination should be known to everybody: they are headed nowhere. Such a pact is a time-wasting exercise that will leave its members worse off than they were at the beginning.

It is interesting to watch and listen to what is going on in the PF-UPND pact. When they told the public that they were joining forces, one thought that over and above removing the MMD from power, they at least had a common understanding of where each of them was in the politics of our country. We did not expect that they will start arguing on who is bigger or who is stronger, or on who is more popular or less popular than the other or whose party is growing faster in terms of popularity than the other and in whose favour is the political ground shifting or not shifting. These are issues that honesty would have helped them to resolve without any need for disquisition. They each should have known by the time they were going to the negotiating table what they wanted and what they could legitimately get out of the Pact.

It is always good to study the way other people do things and learn some lessons. This is because we don’t live in a vacuum. The United Kingdom has just recently formed a coalition government which brought together two unlikely bedfellows – the Conservatives on the one side and the Liberal Democrats on the other. We are not saying that the situation that obtained when the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats came together is the same as what is happening here, but there are some principles that could help us to better understand what is happening in the PF-UNPD pact.

For instance, we do not think there would have been any need for the Conservatives and the Liberals to sit down to discuss forming government if the question of who would be Prime Minister of the United Kingdom between David Cameron of the Conservatives and Nick Clegg of the Liberal Democrats had to be a matter for serious debate. If Nick had tried to nick his way into 10 Downing Street and become Prime Minister instead of David, disregarding the statistics, that deal would never have been consummated. It would not have made sense also, for David and Nick to start debating on whose party was bigger and more popular. The reasons are clear – the electoral statistics dealt with that clearly. Indeed if the two of them could not agree on that issue, it would have been foolish to sit and start considering working together.

This is exactly what the problem is in this pact of PF and UPND. It seems there is a detachment from reality in their discussions. Even the most obvious issues are contested. In the case of Nick in the UK, he knew what he was looking for in the coalition with David. He did not go into the coalition to become Prime Minister by some stroke of luck or negotiating skills. There were issues such as the electoral system in the UK which Nick and his party wanted to be looked at in order to secure future viability of the Liberal Democrats. He was not able to get everything he wanted because it was a contested issue. But David at least agreed that this issue would be subjected to a public decision through a referendum. This was important enough for Nick to go into government to try and change. They shared ministerial positions. But it was clear that Nick’s party was not going to get the key ministries of government because in truth, the Conservatives were the senior partner in their marriage of convenience. And as such, the Conservatives carried more responsibility and this meant that the key ministries or functions of government fell on them.

Of course, no one can say that the issues in Zambia are as clear-cut as they were in the United Kingdom. In the United Kingdom, the horse trading was happening after the elections and there was a clearer understanding of who stood where. But at least it seems, that some honesty governed the way they resolved their issues. Nick did not ask for 50 per cent of the government portfolios and be treated as an equal partner. This is what seems to be missing in the dealings of the PF-UPND pact.

And unless they can grow up and deal with these issues with the honesty and clarity that they need to be dealt with, they should stop wasting the people’s time claiming that they are trying to resolve their problems because these problems can never be resolved in the way that they seem to look at each other. They are wasting their own time and more tragically, wasting people’s opportunity. It is an exercise in futility trying to negotiate that which is not negotiable. The sizes of the two partners cannot be established by negotiation. It is also folly to try and establish who of the two party leaders – Michael Sata and Hakainde Hichilema – is more popular through negotiations. These are matters of fact which they should face and move on to deal with more elusive issues. If they cannot deal with obvious facts, how are they going to deal with issues that cannot be so easily proved?
The opposition collectively has always defeated the MMD for a long time now.

This is a matter of fact. It is also a matter of fact that the statistics have been moving in the same direction for at least one of the opposition parties, which is the PF. They have managed to grow their share of the electoral cake consistently over the last three elections. The trajectory has been an upward one. This has been because of work being done by them. Simply being in a pact and arguing about obvious issues is work and cannot deliver victory for anyone. The opposition are wasting their time arguing about obvious things when they could be busier mobilising our people to register as voters and say no to the impunity that Rupiah Banda and his militia-supported MMD are getting used to.

Rupiah cannot be defeated by a pact that does not know who its leader is and whether it’s coming or going. It might even be better that the parties tackle him independently instead of cheating themselves that they are in a pact when in reality they are in an alliance that is only sapping their energies and is continually pulling them back because they are headed nowhere. Rupiah can be defeated by our people. It is up to those who want to lead our people to mobilise them. But this Pact, in the form that it is, is not mobilising our people, it is confusing them.

If the Pact cannot sit down and say who got more votes in 2006 and 2008 between the two of them, which presidential candidate got a higher share of the votes, how best they can use the previous advantages that they have garnered, then what issue are they going to discuss? We say this because this should be the least contentious issue. But from what they are saying, this seems to be the most contentious issue because now they are moving between statistics and imagination or dreams of how the political landscape has changed or will change since the last elections. If they cannot work together, let them be honourable and tell the people that they have failed to agree on the obvious and go their separate ways. Those who strongly believe that on their own, they absolutely stand no chance of defeating Rupiah should pack their bags. And those who think with some good work, and given Rupiah’s record, can defeat him on their own, they should go full throttle and mobilise for next year’s elections.

Labels: PF-UPND, WYNTER KABIMBA

posted by MrK @ 7:05 AM