Maravi

MMD's crisis of leadership

MMD's crisis of leadership
By The Post
Thu 08 Mar. 2012, 12:00 CAT

"THERE is a vacuum in the MMD and there is no proper control in terms of getting the party organised. Everything is left to chance and we do not know who is supposed to do what," observes Alfred Lienda, a long-standing member of the MMD and a former Deputy Minister of Commerce, Trade and Industry. Truly, it cannot be denied that the MMD is suffering from a leadership crisis. The MMD is today paying for the mistakes of its past leaders.

All the key political leaders of the MMD were eliminated by Frederick Chiluba and a few that remained, Rupiah Banda got rid of them. It is very difficult today to find anyone who was a member of the party in 1990-1991 still playing an active role in the leadership of the MMD.

The party was taken over by opportunists, by elements without any serious political commitment who were just interested in self-aggrandizement. The new leadership of the MMD was constructed from careerism, patronage and business ambitions, from people who wanted to get into the ruling party because it was beneficial to do so. These were not political leaders but something else.

It is interesting to look at the list of those who are aspiring to lead the MMD today and their political backgrounds and record of political service to the MMD or any other political party for that matter. Where did Situmbeko Musokotwane come from? What is his record of political service? When did he join the MMD? Situmbeko has no record of political service.

What he has a record of is probably civil service and working for quasi-governmental organisations like the Bank of Zambia. He only joined politics three years ago when Rupiah Banda made him his finance minister. When did Kabinga Pande join politics? Kabinga was drafted into politics not very long ago by Levy Mwanawasa when he made him minister.

Kabinga was a public relations officer at the Bank of Zambia before that and was not a member of the MMD. Felix Mutati got into politics in 2001 when Chiluba made him a candidate for Lunte. Felix had no political history or record of public service as a politician or social activist before that. Nevers Mumba was drafted into the MMD by Levy when he made him vice-president in May 2003. Nevers had no roots in the MMD.

Nevers participated in the presidential elections of 2001 on the ticket of the National Christian Coalition, a party he had just formed, to enable him contest that year's presidential elections. Before that, Nevers had never been MMD and was known for preaching the word of God and not politics. These are the men who want to lead the MMD today.

And before them, there was Rupiah himself who, until he was recruited into Levy's 2006 election campaign, was UNIP. After the 2006 elections, Levy made him vice-president to reward the people of Eastern Province for their support. This is how Levy himself explained his appointment of Rupiah as Vice-President.

And two years later, the UNIP man became the MMD leader and president of the Republic following Levy's death. And Levy himself came to lead the MMD from nowhere. Levy had left politics to go back to his law practice after resigning as Chiluba's vice-president in 1995.

He was invited back by Chiluba to take over from him, without any strong organisational roots in the party. In short, all the key politicians of the MMD were marginalised, roughly handled or demoted at the hands of Chiluba's desire to maintain supreme and unchallenged hegemony over the party. And those who followed Chiluba did the same; they also tried to tailor the party leadership to suit their own political designs.

Those who tried to oppose this tendency in the party were excluded or marginalised further. There were early warning signs of the dangers of disciplinary measures being used to cripple political competition within the party and sometimes also to settle political differences.

Clearly, for a long time the MMD had no real political leaders. All sorts of mercenaries, vultures and opportunists of all hues joined the party by patronising the president.

And they accordingly weaved themselves into key positions of the party and the government. These were elements who had never struggled for anything politically but were simply given power on a silver platter; they were given political power they had never worked for or fought for.

As such, they did not know how to continue building the party, how to defend its principles and strengthen its appeal.

They were actually not so much interested in the party per se, but more in the government positions. The MMD simply offered them the opportunity to get government positions - it was simply the door and the key to government positions. For years, these leaders of the MMD did very little to organise and strengthen the party outside government.

Since coming into power, the MMD has increasingly been dependent on government resources to survive. It was not surprising that even civil servants, permanent secretaries were offering themselves to stand on the MMD ticket in by-elections.

The question is: when did they become members of the MMD for them to qualify for adoption as parliamentary candidates of the party? It would seem the MMD had blended itself with the civil service and probably the entire public sector. And because of this, it looked big, strong and better organised.

But now that the public sector is no longer at the service of the MMD, the vacuum of leadership, and even of general membership, is becoming so easy to see.

Now the MMD has to face the real test of political competition. Greatness comes not when things are good for you but when you are really tested, when you have taken some knocks, some disappointments, when you have been visited by the sadness of losing an election and been driven out of power, because only if you have been in the deepest valley can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain.

The MMD certainly needs to do a lot of work about itself. The MMD leaders certainly need to do a lot about themselves. They need better and different organisation. They need better and more committed leaders than the political vultures they are calling leaders who joined the party simply because it was in government and had more to offer and not because they subscribed to any of its values, principles, standards or goals.

After all, the MMD had lost all these things long before these characters joined the party and it has become an omnibus, a gravy train, a party of the corrupt. With government resources out of their way, they will need to learn how to win public support and build a cadre of supporters without money but with principles and standards and common aims and values.

They need to spread their appeal and attract different sorts of people. They need to redefine themselves and get straight what their core beliefs are. They will need to sort out the confusions and false signals that arose while they were in government.

They need to take a fresh look at themselves in the new circumstances. In a word, the MMD needs to renew itself. But with who - Nevers, Felix, Kabinga, Situmbeko? They need time to reflect and listen and come to understand the nation better than they have of late.

Labels: MMD, SITUMBEKO MUSOKOTWANE

posted by MrK @ 6:40 PM