UPND's Kanyama rally

UPND's Kanyama rally
Sun 09 Sep. 2012, 10:29 CAT

We know that the UPND, as a political party, has not been conducting itself in a good way. And we ourselves can bear testimony to this. We have been targets of their uncouthness, violence, lack of civility, lies, and so on and so forth. They have publicly declared us their enemy number one.

But we don't believe this, in itself, is a good reason for the police to deny the UPND the right to hold a political rally.

The freedom of assembly is an inalienable right protected as such by our Constitution. This is a fundamental right that cannot be arbitrarily taken away from the UPND by the police. This is a freedom that is not granted by the government; it is a freedom that the government is created to protect.

As such, the enjoyment of the freedom of assembly is not only enjoyed by those the police consider to be worthy of it; those who are seen to be more 'responsible' or 'peaceful'. Constitutional rights of this nature do not have to be earned. Those who will disturb the peace while trying to exercise their freedom of assembly the law is there to deal with them and they should be dealt with.

The rights of our people to exercise their freedom of assembly should not be subjected to the momentary whim of the police or an electoral majority in power.
Under our Constitution, citizens have a right to gather peacefully and protest the policies and actions of their government or those of other groups with demonstrations, marches, and other forms of direct citizen action.

Such things are a testing ground for any democracy, especially a young one like ours. The ideals of freedom of assembly and citizen participation are easy to defend when everyone remains polite and in agreement on basic issues. But those who call for or seek such assemblies - and their targets - do not agree on basic issues, and such disagreements may be passionate and angry. The challenge then is one of balance: to defend the right to freedom of assembly, while maintaining public order and countering attempts at intimidation or violence. To suppress peaceful assemblies in the name of order is to invite repression; to permit uncontrolled violent assemblies is to invite anarchy.

Clearly, there is no magic formula for achieving this balance. In the end, it depends on the commitment of the majority to maintaining the institutions of democracy and the precepts of individual rights. Democratic societies are capable of enduring the bitterest disagreements among their citizens - except for disagreement about the legitimacy of democracy itself.

We have consistently stated that the exercise of power must be the constant practice of self-limitation and modesty.

And when we talk about the exercise of power, we are not only talking about political power. It could be just as well, say having important posts, important functions, important responsibilities, which is what is usually called power. Some people begin to change, to be deformed, as soon as they have a little responsibility - a little, not much, power - and we think that, the more power people have, the greater the risk; that's a fact. We think it requires being aware of the danger and ever alert, ever vigilant against it.

The use of the police and police powers in matters of a political nature requires a lot of self-limitation and modesty. And in March 1969, Dr Kenneth Kaunda gave guidance to the UNIP national council on this issue: "Nothing would be more dangerous than to confuse men and women who are responsible for the maintenance of law and order in any country. UNIP members, therefore, apart from the fact that they are humanists, must remember that even for their own good, their fellow workers in the police force must be left to deal with the maintenance of law and order in the way they were trained…"

There is clearly no good reason to deny the UPND the right to hold a political rally in Kanyama today. The issue of possible violence or threat to public order cannot hold, cannot stand reason. The political support of UPND in Kanyama where they want to hold their political rally is insignificant. Prior to last year's elections, UPND used to deceive people and itself that Kanyama was its stronghold. But despite holding so many rallies there, UPND's performance in Kanyama and the rest of Lusaka Province was very poor.

In Kanyama Constituency, Hakainde Hichilema, the UPND presidential candidate in last September's election was only voted for by 5,967 voters. Rupiah Banda, the then ruling MMD candidate, got 10,185 votes. And Michael Sata was voted for by 22,101 Kanyama voters. And even if one added the votes of Hakainde and Rupiah, they are still far less than Michael's votes in Kanyama. And the Patriotic Front's parliamentary candidate for Kanyama Constituency, Colonel Gerry Chanda, polled 20,474 votes against MMD's Yohane Mwanza's 9,244 votes and UPND's Claud Pfuma's 6,775. All the local government wards in Kanyama Constituency were overwhelmingly won by the Patriotic Front candidates. And the overall presidential election result for Lusaka Province was Sata 224,925 votes, Banda 123,653 votes and Hichilema only managed a paltry 45,000 votes. How can UPND with such low political support in Kanyama Constituency, and in every ward of that constituency, and in the Lusaka Province as a whole, be a threat to the peace? UPND leaders and cadres must be mad to provoke such an overwhelming majority because they will be reduced to pulp.

We all know that Hakainde and UPND have always overrated themselves, claiming to have the support they don't actually have. Before last year's elections, they used to claim that the political landscape in Lusaka and the Copperbelt had shifted in their favour. But the election results showed a totally different picture - Michael and the Patriotic Front's support had actually increased in these areas while that of Hakainde and the UPND had drastically declined.

UPND enjoy deceiving themselves and others who are willing to be deceived of being what they are not. They are simply petty and shameless braggadocios. They used to ferry people from as far as Mwembeshi, Nangoma, Chisamba, Kabwe and Kafue, Mazabuka, Monze to their rallies in Kanyama just to try and show big numbers.

There is no need for anyone to waste their time following Hakainde and UPND because they are not a big factor in Zambian politics today. Their being a big factor in Zambian politics ended with the 2001 elections and the death of UPND's founding leader Anderson Mazoka. Since Hakainde took over UPND, the graph of performance has been going down at a very sharp rate. And nothing seems to be in the offing to alter that trend. UPND is increasingly becoming a regional party of Southern Province. If the Kanyama UPND rally was to be held in Monze, Choma or some other area in that region, one would have reasons to worry about violence but not here in Lusaka.

There is no need for the police to be deceived by UPND's cheap talk and think they are a force that can lead to a breakdown of law and order in Lusaka. They are not a factor. And the police shouldn't elevate them to where they have not reached.
It is therefore important for the police to stay away from matters of politics. What they are trying to address is a matter that falls firmly in the political realm and which has very little to do with public order.
One can question the way the court order has been granted to the UPND to go ahead with their rally in Kanyama today. But one cannot reasonably question the correctness of them being allowed to go ahead with their political rally. Matters of politics should be addressed politically by political players and not the police or the courts. It's over-burdening the courts and putting them under unnecessary pressure to deal with political matters.

And as we have stated before, how the forces of democratic governance interact with each other is the challenge we face and have to work through as a continuing and dynamic process in our young democracy. There is an old saying that freedom and order are constantly in tension with one another in society. Order without freedom leads to totalitarianism. Freedom without order leads to anarchy. But it is also said that societies recover quicker and more healthily from too much freedom than they do from totalitarianism.

If all this sounds too abstract, let us then state it in simpler terms. We would hope that our politicians and their cadres and supporters develop a greater level of tolerance, integrity and responsibility. Political activity and the freedom of assembly should be under no threat in this democracy.

We think it is part of the democratic process that we take vigorous issue with the way political leaders and their cadres and supporters conduct themselves without that in any way implying a right on anyone's part to infringe on the freedom of assembly and indeed on the freedom of expression.