Maravi

Name calling among leaders bothers Mutesa

Name calling among leaders bothers Mutesa
By Ernest Chanda
Tue 04 Sep. 2012, 19:17 CAT

ZAMBIANS for Empowerment and Development (ZED) president Fred Mutesa says leaders must change and move from a culture of slandering each other to addressing real issues in the nation. Dr Mutesa said some of the words uttered by some political leaders displayed their motive for joining politics.

"For us, what is very important is the motivation. Why are people aspiring for public office, particularly political office? And there are different motives. I'll not go into details but suffice to say that the culture of name-calling, insults and violence, which has hitherto characterised our politics is something that we find deplorable and something that we should move away from," Dr Mutesa said in an interview yesterday.

" Because, if our motivation is to serve the public as we indeed claim to do then we must all work to ensure that the harmony and peace of the nation is preserved. Therefore, it means we do not treat each other as enemies; we are competitors or rivals in so far as presenting the best ideas that can help this nation move forward. It's an entrenched culture we have, a lot of people think that shouting loudest is best. That will not help our nation move forward. It's time we started competing on the platform of ideas."

He said it was not too late to change the leadership style and dwell more on issues.

Dr Mutesa said leaders must develop a culture of telling the truth when communicating ideas to the public.

"It's not a problem of the opposition, it's not a problem of the party in government alone, it's an entrenched political culture which has been perpetrated by certain type of thinking that this is the only way to conduct politics," said Dr Mutesa.

"It may not be something that our people are familiar with but the beginning has to be made. So things change and we should bear that in mind that tomorrow we may join hands for a common cause. We must have a tradition of separating political ideas from our personalities."

Labels: FRED MUTESA, POLITICS, ZED

posted by MrK @ 3:29 PM