Nevers will never lead a UPND-MMD pact

Nevers will never lead a UPND-MMD pact
By The Post
Mon 23 July 2012, 07:40 CAT

If the MMD and Nevers Mumba are getting into a pact with UPND and Hakainde Hichilema with a view to leading it, they are wasting their time. UPND and Hakainde will not allow MMD and Nevers to lead the pact. UPND and Hakainde are getting into a pact with MMD for only one thing: to lead it and make Hakainde president.

And the revelation by Rupiah Banda that they will not allow a Bemba to be president again should be taken very seriously by MMD and Nevers. This is not only Rupiah's position. It is something Rupiah shares with Hakainde and those around him.

UPND and Hakainde will never subordinate themselves to anyone; they will never accept to be junior partners in any alliance. Even if their numbers are lower than those of their partners, even if their support base is smaller than that of their partners, UPND and Hakainde will always insist on being the leaders. If they don't take a leading position, the least they will accept is being equal.

Despite PF clearly being bigger than UPND, Hakainde and his followers insisted, in the least, on them being equal partners in their pact. Despite Michael Sata being far much more popular and having defeated Hakainde in the last two elections, Hakainde insisted on being the PF-UPND pact candidate. Many people advised Hakainde that there was no basis for him to think he would lead the PF-UPND pact because Michael was clearly ahead of him in terms of popularity, electability and the size of political party.

But Hakainde insisted that the political landscape had shifted in his favour and Michael was no longer that popular in Luapula, Copperbelt and Lusaka. He was advised that even if this was so, it was not possible for him to convince his pact partners that the political landscape had changed in his favour because there was nothing for him to show that this was actually so.

Hakainde's response to those who advised him to take the vice-presidency was that instead of asking him to be number two to Michael, they should instead go and ask Michael to be number two to him. This was so because Hakainde saw no reason why he should be vice-president to Michael instead of Michael being his vice-president.

And he would ask: is it because I am Tonga? According to Hakainde, a Tonga also had the right to be president. This left many people who tried to help bridge the differences in the PF-UPND pact shocked by Hakainde's ego and narrow tribal approach to politics. It was very clear that Hakainde was blinded by ambition and tribe and this made him fail to see the political reality in the country.

Hakainde believed that without UPND and him supporting Michael, MMD and Rupiah would win. He used to say this repeatedly on radio programmes. He was totally convinced, or rather obsessed, that no single opposition party could on its own defeat the MMD and Rupiah. And believing that the MMD would certainly win if his pact with PF and Michael was broken, UPND and Hakainde started to prostitute themselves with MMD and Rupiah in the run-up to last year's elections.

In truth, there was actually an electoral pact, unannounced as it might have been, between Hakainde and Rupiah to defeat Michael. But again, they failed to read the mood of the nation and both of them lost to Michael and PF.
Why did Hakainde attempt to go into a pact with PF, in the first place? It was to lead it. After Michael's hospitalisation in 2007, Hakainde was convinced that he was dying.

And he thought that that was the opportunity for him to take over PF. But Hakainde is not Michael's creator. Michael survived to win last year's election and he is still here. When Hakainde realised that Michael would live up to the elections, he started scheming about a pact convention that he would manipulate to become its candidate. Later on, Hakainde realised that he was not dealing with fools and had no choice but to leave and go and work with the MMD and Rupiah in frustration.

Probably this was easy for him to do and accept because Rupiah was not a Bemba. How else can one explain his conduct?

If Nevers thinks he is special and Hakainde will accept to be his number two, he is cheating himself. There is no doubt the MMD is far much a bigger political party than UPND. But even now, one can see that UPND and Hakainde behave as if they are bigger than MMD. Even their collective candidate for the speaker, Richard Kapita, was Hakainde's right hand man, a UPND vice-president.

The bigger party, MMD, was given the position of deputy speaker. Unfortunately for Hakainde, his candidate, Richard, lost and the MMD's candidate Mkhondo Lungu managed to become the deputy speaker. Anyway, this is what happens to greedy people - they get nothing in the end. Hakainde and UPND walked out of the parliamentary elections with nothing like someone leaving the toilet.

In saying all this, we are not advising Nevers not to accept to be Hakainde's vice-president in their scheme of things, in their pact. We are merely pointing out the obvious. And that is, Hakainde will never accept to be Nevers' vice-president no matter how big MMD may be in comparison to UPND and no matter how popular and electable Nevers may be over Hakainde. And this is what today brings together Hakainde and Rupiah - their shared and unbridled anti-Bemba political attitude.

It is also important for Nevers to realise that Hakainde's eyes are set on nothing but becoming president. This is the purpose and meaning of his entire political participation. Even Hakainde's contribution to the constitution review process is dictated by this. Hakainde is simply and primarily focused on two issues: running mate and 50 per cent +1.

Running mate because being a regional, tribal politician, Hakainde knows very well that without a pact that he can easily manipulate to lead, he will never be elected president of this country. And as an extension of this, he sees a presidential re-run offered by 50 per cent + 1 as an opportunity for maximising the electoral benefits of a pact. Everything else in the constitution is of secondary importance or value to Hakainde.

This makes Hakainde ill-suited to be a leader. According to Dr Kenneth Kaunda, "To be a leader at any level at all and in any scheme of things, you have got to love your fellow human beings, you have got to be ready to sacrifice for their good, you have got to be able to learn to respect the feelings of your fellow men" (Speech to the UNIP national council, Mulungushi, April 19, 1968).

And KK further warned: "I do not want to see decisions made for self-interest rather than the benefit of the people; I do not want to see people using wealth or superior education to manipulate decisions in their favour" (UNIP national council, Lusaka, August 11, 1969).