‘Doing is the best way of saying’

‘Doing is the best way of saying’
By The Post
Sat 02 Apr. 2011, 04:00 CAT

Rupiah Banda said very good and correct things in Livingstone at the Southern African Development Community organ Troika summit on politics, peace, defence and security. Rupiah called for the consolidation of democracy through the establishment of institutions that uphold tenets of good governance, respect for human rights and the rule of law.

“If there is anything that we must learn from the upheavals going on in the northern part of our continent, it is that the legitimate expectations of the citizens of our countries cannot be taken for granted,” Rupiah correctly observed.

He also talked about the consolidation of democracy through the frequent holding of free and fair general elections. These are all good things.

But it is easier said than done. With Rupiah, democracy seems to work very well in speech but not in practice or deed.

It is not difficult for anyone to regurgitate speeches written for them by speechwriters who know something about the tenets of democracy. It is not what he said that really matters but what is done.

It is said that “doing is the best way of saying”.

For Christians, living is the best way of believing. Faith without deeds is worthless; as James stated, “What does it profit, my brethren, if a man says he has faith, but has not works? Can his faith save him?

If a brother or sister is ill-clad and in lack of daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and filled,’ without giving them the things needed for the body, what does it profit?

So faith, by itself, if it has no works, is dead” (James 2:14-17).

So are good words on democracy, good governance, respect for human rights and rule of law without deeds, without good practices.

We wish Rupiah could practice even a tiny fraction of the things he said in Livingstone.

Rupiah says if there is anything that we must learn from the upheavals in North Africa, it is that the legitimate expectations of the citizens of our countries cannot be taken for granted.

But Rupiah’s own daily political practices are of taking the legitimate expectations of his people for granted.

Look at the way he has handled the constitution review process.

Despite opposition to the National Constitutional Conference by the majority of our people, Rupiah went ahead and spent over K200 billion on a process that he knew very well was very far from meeting the legitimate expectations of our people.

In this regard, Rupiah took the Zambian people for granted. In the end, this process failed to produce even a constitution that he himself wanted.

But over K200 billion of taxpayers’ money has been spent on this process.

And Rupiah continues to go on as if it is business as usual; to him this is just a small setback.

He is not talking about the poor people’s money he has wasted.

Rupiah was told from the very beginning that the constitution process he had embarked on was not going to meet the legitimate expectations of the people of Zambia as contained in the recommendations of the Mung’omba Constitution Review Commission.

This didn’t bother him.

What mattered to him were his own wishes. Rupiah wanted to give the Zambian people a constitution that met his own expectations and not the legitimate expectations of the people.

The defeat of his constitution bill is something that came as a matter of surprise, something he didn’t expect – it is a technical blow and not a matter of a principled failure to secure the support of the people.

Rupiah was not interested in the support of the people for his constitution.

And this lack of respect for the legitimate expectations of the people is also demonstrated by the way Rupiah has handled the fight against corruption in this country.

The Zambian people wanted their courts of law to punish Frederick Chiluba and others who had stolen their money.

The demand to strip Chiluba of his immunity was a popular one supported by the great majority of our people and their representatives in Parliament at that time.

The case of Chiluba was a solid one, but Rupiah made sure he was acquitted and asked the Zambian people to accept his acquittal even before the magistrate had finished reading his judgment.

Rupiah went as far as withdrawing the appeal against Chiluba that was legitimately and appropriately filed in our courts.

Again, this was in total defiance of the legitimate expectations of the Zambian people to suit his personal desires.

The people’s legitimate expectations were subordinated to his. Rupiah’s will took precedence over the will of the people.

This is surely not a recipe for upholding the tenets of good governance and respect for the rule of law that Rupiah is talking about.

What rule of law can be in a country in which the president’s will determines the behaviour of the entire judicial process?

If he wants an acquittal in any case, he gets it. If he wants a matter not to be appealed no matter how legitimate an appeal may be, he gets it.

The Zambian government secured a judgment in the London High Court ordering Chiluba to pay back more than US $45 million he had stolen from the Zambian people.

All that was needed was to have this judgment registered in our High Court.

Rupiah again corruptly ensured that this judgment was not registered and enforced against Chiluba. What rule of law is this?

Can Rupiah really lecture anybody on rule of law?

And talking about human rights, what human rights is Rupiah observing or respecting?

Young people in Western Province wanted to hold meetings and express their views and feelings over the Barotse Agreement of 1964.

Rupiah stopped them from holding these meetings; police permits were denied them.

In the end, his policemen killed and maimed for life some of these young people whose only crime was to try and exercise their human rights, their freedom of expression and that of assembly.

Rupiah treated them as if they had no political rights whatsoever.

And such a brutal man, such a ruthless tyrant is today preaching about human rights. Well, it’s probably a matter of ‘Do as I say, not as I do’.

Rupiah is also talking about the holding of free and fair general elections.

What free and fair elections can Rupiah really talk about?

Free and fair elections can only be held when the concerns of all key players are adequately addressed.

Rupiah is today running elections in this country with an electoral commission that he has picked single-handedly.

Rupiah has not allowed the input of others in the composition of the Electoral Commission or in the appointment of its key managers.

Everything is being arranged in a manner that gives him advantage and that puts others at an unfair disadvantage. For elections to be free and fair, there also ought to be transparency in the organisation of elections.

Rupiah has rejected and outlawed a clearly legitimate and legal demand for parallel vote tabulation so that the result can be open to easy manipulation if need for this arises.

For free and fair elections to be held, the major players have to agree on the conditions under which these elections would be held.

This is not the case in Zambia today because Rupiah is not interested in consensus over the conduct of the elections.

He wants everything done his way because he is the government and the government is him.

Rupiah has monopolised the state-owned media. It cannot be denied that the state-owned media is today campaigning for Rupiah and the MMD to the exclusion of all others.

The opposition is only covered in the state media when doing so serves the interests of Rupiah and the MMD.

To have free and fair elections, all political parties should have reasonable access to the publicly-owned media and the public media should have a duty to report political campaigns fairly and accurately.

And lastly, the democratic consolidation that Rupiah is talking about can only be realised under an environment in which political tolerance is encouraged.

But what we see today is increasing intolerance on Rupiah’s part and on the part of his cadres.

This is not a recipe for the holding of free and fair elections, for the upholding of good governance, respect for human rights and the rule of law.

This is not the way the legitimate expectations of our people can be respected.

It is a sure way of ensuring that the legitimate expectations of our people are taken for granted.