Tag: edgar lungu

Don’t underrate us!

Don’t underrate us! Featured

Don’t underrate us, we are revolutionaries, we are socialists and we know how to struggle from very disadvantaged positions and win.

At the time of the August 12 elections, the Zambian voters will have had this Patriotic Front government of President Edgar Lungu in power for six years. They may hate them, but they know them. We want them now to know us – our values, our identity and our character as a revolutionary political party.

We want to win not because the Patriotic Front and President Lungu are despised, but because we are better understood, supported and trusted. We should win and we can win. For us, there’s no choice between being principled and unelectable; and electable and unprincipled. We should win because of what we believe. We are not going to win despite our beliefs. We will only win because of them. We will win to fulfil our principles.

The task of revolutional transformation of our nation is not one for the faint hearted, or the world of weary, or cynical. It is not a task for those afraid of hard choices, for those with complacent views, or those seeking a comfortable personal life.

We are confident that we can once again debate new ideas, new thinking – away from the neoliberal capitalist outlook – without fearing the taunt of betrayal. We say what we mean and mean what we say. Not just what we are against – capitalism, but what we are for – socialism.

We say what we do mean, what we stand by, what we stand for. We have a clear, up-to-date manifesto of the objects and objectives of our party. Our manifesto was launched last year in June. It has been in the public domain for almost a year. It was open to wide and deep debate.

We are proud of our beliefs. And we have stated them in terms that people are able to understand and identify with them in every workplace, every home, every family, every community in our country.

Our party’s determination to bring real change, not just any change, is increasingly becoming the symbol of the trust the Zambian people can place in us to change the country. It is time to break out of the past and break through with a clear, radical and socialist vision for Zambia.

We want to build a nation with pride in itself, a thriving community, rich in economic prosperity, secure in social justice, equity and peace, confident in revolutionary change. And in fulfillment of our national anthem –

“Stand and sing of Zambia, proud and free,

Land of work and join in unity,

Victors in the struggle for our rights,

We’ve won freedom’s fight.

All one, Strong and Free.

Africa is our own motherland.

Fashion’d with and blessed by God’s good hand,

Let us all her people join as one,

Brothers under the sun,

All one, Strong and Free.

One land and one nation is our cry,

Dignity and peace neath Zambia’s sky

Like our noble eagle in its flight,

Zambia, praise to thee.

All one, Strong and Free…”

A land in which our children can bring up their children with a future to look forward to. This is our hope, not just to promise revolutionary change – but to achieve it.

Fred M’membe

President of the Socialist Party

Police impartiality, unfairness

Police impartiality, unfairness Featured

Last week President Edgar Lungu made a very strange admission, or rather confession: “The public confidence in the police service is low, and it is up to the police, themselves, to regain that confidence by their actions. To this end, there is urgent need for the police service to address these public concerns if the people of Zambia are to regain confidence in them.

”It’s very difficult to disagree with what President Lungu is saying. But there’s one very serious omission: the cause of all this loss of public confidence in police.

It’s the abuse of the police by President Lungu and his followers that has, more than anything else, contributed to this state of affairs. They have turned the police into a wing of the ruling party for use against the opposition and other dissenting voices.

Nothing would be more dangerous than to confuse men and women who are responsible for the maintenance of law and order in our country.

Those in government, therefore, must remember that even for their own good, their fellow citizens in the police must be left to deal with the maintenance of law and order in the way they have been trained.

It’s very dangerous for politicians in the governing party to control the police and make it do their bidding.

In any country where law is deliberately twisted to entrap political opponents and in which police officers act as an extension of the ruling party cadres rather than impartial professional law enforcement officers, there can be nothing but tyranny and a mockery of justice. Let them continue abusing the police now, but let them also remember that when they have left the pinnacle of power what may appear acceptable on others now may taste oppressive. In other words, they should remember that while today it is them at the giving end; tomorrow it may be them at the receiving end.

On the other hand, police officers would greatly help to evolve a fair and impartial police, defend the rule of law and constitutionalism and guarantee the success of our multiparty political dispensation and pluralism, if, individually and collectively, they resolved to discharge their policing obligations without fear or favour.

Dr Kenneth Kaunda gave us very good guidance on this score: “First and foremost must come the quality of impartial fair play for I do not wish my policemen to be partisans to the many political and tribal feuds that may emerge in our country, as has happened in others. The worst policeman so far as I am concerned is that man who will not admonish or arrest another because he is of the same tribe, race or political sympathy. Equally reprehensible is the policeman who will not do his duty for fear that because he is of a different tribe, race or political feeling his deeds will be misunderstood. If you should ever find yourselves in a position of compromise against the principles of fair play and impartiality, then be humble enough to seek God’s guidance because neither the present nor the future generation will forgive you for betraying the many people who have died and suffered in the struggle to bring forth this independent land” (Police Training School, Lilayi – April 15, 1966).

Fred M’membe

They are on a very dangerous path

They are on a very dangerous path Featured

Mr Bowman Lusambo is saying that “whatever it takes we are winning the general elections”. What does this mean?
The other week his boss, Mr Edgar Lungu, was saying those who want to takeover from him as presidents of Zambia should wait for 2026 or 2031. How should this be interpreted?
We shouldn’t also forget that early in his presidency Mr Lungu warned Zambians that he would crush like a tonne of bricks anyone who tried to stand in his way.
This desire to win or retain power – have a third term of office – at any cost by Mr Lungu and his disciples is dangerous and frightening.
From my very limited military studies and experience, I learned that victory at any cost is dangerous. We were taught that victory must be measured by its sustainability over time. Overcoming a foe, joined by many enraged citizens — whose survivors would only regroup with hardening resolve to carry on the war — doesn’t constitute a true victory.
Winning, it can be argued, isn’t quite all it’s cracked up to be. Despite our preoccupation with victory, winning is often a double-edged sword.
I am surprised to see the “win-at-all-costs” attitude applied to our politics by Mr Lungu – who I expect to have some reasonable military knowledge and experience. Causes, campaigns and crusades are fueled by self-righteous enthusiasm in the struggle against those who we assess as wrong-headedly seeking to oppose us. ‘If they can’t be convinced,’ we think, ‘they must be defeated. If in defeat they refuse subjugation, they must be destroyed. At all costs, we must win.’
Though the exact nature of our political problems might be unique, it’s certainly not the first time in Zambian politics that we find ourselves in a place where it’s much easier — and a more certain path to electoral victory — to destroy one’s opponent rather than attempt to find common ground, or at least mutual respect. We still remember how Simon Mwansa Kapwepwe and UPP were treated, detained in prisons and their party banned by the UNIP government.
Of course, some things are worth fighting for — at critical moments in our history, we’ve had winners and losers. The fatal trap is that an objective of “destroying” your political opponent is absurd. A functioning multiparty democracy not only has, but needs more viable political parties, not a triumphant victor and an opposition left hopelessly vanquished.
Checks and balances are needed to defend ourselves from our own worst instincts. Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. Total victory or catastrophic success can be the worst of calamities. There’s a point in the “fight” when we must understand that effective negotiation and compromise is not only the best course of action — but it’s the only one that could possibly maintain a political environment where future multiparty governance is possible. In politics, as in war, every decision must be taken with an eye to the future — remembering that the next issue must be adjudicated by respected and respectful opponents.
This regime of Mr Lungu needs to moderate its push to destroy the opposition because it runs counter to our natural inclination, felt in the heat of combat, to demonise or belittle the foe. In the short term, it seems to unite us against a common, hated enemy. But when you seek to delegitimise your foe, you’re actually inviting your own delegitimisation. To be sure, it’s a precarious balance. It’s important to “fight” for one’s beliefs, but there is a point at which “fighting” erodes underlying foundations. In politics, at its hyperbolic end, the losing party is outlawed and its leaders jailed on trumped up treason charges. And historically, the prevailing party, absent the moderating influence of a loyal opposition, soon runs off the rails.
At the best of times, what you’ll leave behind is a generational divide. If people forget the protagonists involved, what they’ll remember is what crushing the enemy, or being crushed, felt like. They’ll tell their children, and their children’s children, who to trust and who to malign.
Soon, the independence ideals that harked in our multiparty democracy will wisp away, like the wind. The moment of apparent conquest can be the time of greatest vulnerability. Grasping for total victory can be our undoing.
It’s tempting to want “strength” in these tumultuous times, but the job of building and repairing our country has to come from a collective leadership. Our leaders won’t look the same; they won’t always agree with one another; and, as with any collective, it won’t make everyone happy at all points. That’s what compromise, and living in a functioning multiparty democracy, looks like. What will define this collective leadership is their stance towards those who may think a little different from themselves — who may have a different order of priorities and way of doing business. Don’t look out for these leaders as being the women and men with the loudest voices, or the most zealous convictions. Instead, they’ll be the ones willing to let go of the side of the pool, so that they can swim towards the middle.
It is a big task of those who would step forward. There are few parades for the modest moderate and endless criticism from the frenzied fringes on both sides. Instead, these true heroes must take quiet satisfaction that their contributions will enable possibilities further in the future than most people look. And even when that future arrives, there will be loud complaints about the traffic from the vocal experts who rail on, oblivious to the selfless labour and thoughtful compromises that created the roads they take for granted.
Still, those leaders are among us. We cannot wait for them to rise one-by-one only to be pummeled down by a cacophony of intolerance and tyranny. It is up to us to encourage, support, and celebrate those who will serve and lead. When they stand, we must stand with them.

Fred M’membe

President Lungu’s Copperbelt visit was a disaster

President Lungu’s Copperbelt visit was a disaster Featured

President Edgar Lungu’s working visit on the Copperbelt was a disaster in many ways.

This was the President’s first visit to the Copperbelt Province in 2021. The province has been a bastion of PF support over the past years. Being the first trip, it was planned to provide a good start for the President’s and his Party’s campaign towards the August 2021 elections.

However things have changed. The people of the Copperbelt need change. President Lungu and the PF are now becoming history. People were not willing to attend Presidents Lungu’s meetings. His ministers and cronies had to resort to bribes to mobilise a resemblance of presence and support. This effort didn’t work in Mufulira and it ended up being a huge embarrassment for President Lungu and the PF establishment.

As a Socialist Party we are today the fastest growing political power on the Copperbelt. Increasingly, more people see in us the alternative to the failed experimentation with neo-liberal capitalism that has sent thousands of workers jobless on the street and is today failing to contain the COVID-19 pandemic.

Secondly, the trip came at huge cost to the Zambian taxpayer. The entourage was big – involving hundreds of vehicles from Lusaka and the Copperbelt. Three choppers and the presidential Jet were also assigned. The defence and security deployment was massive. The habit of dishing out brown envelopes continued. Its is an extremely reckless way spending the taxpayers money at a time that millions of Zambian lives are at stake due to the pandemic and with a health system that is poorly resourced.

Thirdly, the trip also reminded us of the retrogressive role played by the Civil Aviation Authority and our Zambia Airforce. The two institutions have in the past been used to constrain political opposition leaders’ air travel during election campaigns. We are in January – still a distance from the official campaign period, but this form of rigging and intimidation has already begun! We are cognisant of the immense difficulties the two institutions work under. However short term political appeasement has eroded the confidence of the masses of our people in these two key national institutions. The Zambian people have to win back these two institutions; President Lungu and the PF must go! The damage they are causing is irreparable.

Have a head for figures

Have a head for figures Featured

It’s crass dishonest to claim that President Edgar Lungu is a blessing and has brought good to Zambia.
This claim is wrong because it agrees neither with facts over the years of Mr Lungu’s presidency, nor with the social facts, statistics so far known to us.
The rural poverty under Mr Lungu’s reign is 76.6 per cent. The three poorest provinces of our country – Western, Luapula and Northern provinces – have poverty levels of 82.2 per cent, 81.1 per cent and 79.7 per cent respectively.
Our maternal mortality rate is 213 deaths/100,000 live births; infant mortality rate stands at 56 deaths/1,000 live births; our physicians density or doctor ratio is 9 doctors/100,000 population; and we have a death rate of 11.6 deaths/1,000 population. Is this the good, the blessing Mr Lungu has brought us?
Let’s learn to argue with facts, figures; let’s learn to have a head for figures. That is to say, we must attend to the quantitative aspect of a situation and make a basic quantitative analysis. Every quality manifests itself in a certain quantity, and without quantity, there can be no quality. To this day many of our politicians still do not understand that they must attend to the quantitative aspect of things – the basic statistics, the main percentages and the quantitative limits that determine the qualities of things. They have no figures in their heads and therefore cannot help making mistakes and wrong conclusions.
The truth is the history of humankind is one of continuous development from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom. That is what dialectics teaches us. And this process is never-ending. In any society in which classes exist class struggle will never end; and the struggle between truth and falsehood will never end.
Zambia’s problems are complicated, and our brains must also be a little complicated.
Today our population is 17,426,623 (July 2020 est.) and at our current population growth rate of 2.89 per cent (2020 est) in the next 15 years our country’s population will more than double. What will life be like for doubled Zambian population in 15 years in terms of food, water, sanitation, housing, education, health, transportation and so on and so forth?

Fred M’membe

Garden Compound, Lusaka