…What Criteria Has He Used To Arrive At That Person?
Was it a Freudian slip when President Edgar Chagwa Lungu
told the nation that he was learning a lot from veteran Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe and shortly after, disclose that
he was grooming a friend to take over from him? Not that there is
anything wrong in grooming anyone to take up the mantle after his stint, but
the problem with this is that the President is already stifling internal party
democracy by curtailing anyone with ambitions of democratically contesting the
presidency.
The other problem I seem to find in President Lungu grooming
a successor is that he has barely been in office for less than four months and
in that period he has already identified a potential successor. The question is
has he identified that person based on their hardwork or other factor that we
may not know about? Anyway, this is a topic for another day.
The issue of “anointing” a successor in the ruling PF is
still fresh in people’s minds which resulted in a very fractious national
convention which selected President Lungu as the party’s national presidential candidate
following the death of President Michael Sata, the party’s founder, in October last year. There had been eleven candidates
vying for the position of party leader and subsequently as national
presidential candidate.
Two national conventions were held one after another in
November last year with court injunctions and counter-injunctions flying back
and forth to determine which one was the more legitimate convention and
therefore producing a legitimate presidential candidate. With the support of
party national chairperson Inonge Wina, the Lungu faction emerged winner in the
political melee to succeed President Sata.
Instruments Of Power
All this was because President Sata, on the last trip which
saw him hospitalised in a London hospital where he subsequently died, left the
party’s national secretary who was also Minister of Defence and Minister of
Justice, Edgar Lungu, to act as President. This act alone saw Lungu, hitherto,
a little known lawyer who entered politics through representing Sata, himself a
litigious politician who frequently fell foul of the law for his political
activities. Lungu was to later give a shot at the Chawama seat losing it but
winning it in 2011.
President Sata, on his numerous foreign outings, had left a
lot of people to act in his place and never once did he leave his then Vice
President Dr Guy Scott to act despite the fact that he was constitutionally the
one who should have been acting as President in his (Sata’s) absence. Irony of
ironies, though, is that Scott took up the mantle upon Sata’s death and saw the
country’s transition to the next election in which Zambians elected President
Lungu.
The scramble to succeed President Sata started more than a
year before he passed on and the process claimed the scalp of the man who the
nation saw as the one to take over from the founding party president whom it
was being speculated at the time that he would not go beyond 2016 compounded by
rumours of ill-health.
President Sata sprung a surprise, stripping Wynter Kabimba, the party’s national secretary and justice minister of all his positions.
Kabimba was a powerful figure who was, protocol-wise, third in the hierarchy
from President Sata and Vice President Dr Scott. Incidentally, the party chief
executive officer attracted the ire of the party membership across the breadth
and length of the country with cadres carrying coffins demanding his removal as
administrative head of the party.
President Lungu and his supporters fought the internal
succession battle on the basis of him being anointed by President Sata by
virtue of being left the instruments of power. As Acting President, Lungu also
officiated at two most important events, the golden jubilee independent
celebration and Sata’s funeral, the two events that probably won him national
admiration.
For President Lungu to say that he is grooming a successor,
he obviously is killing the ambition of not only the people who challenged him
at the parallel conventions, but others within the party who could have emerged
after his tenure as party and republican president.
If President Lungu is grooming someone to take over the
reins as PF leader who would then go on and contest the national presidency
along with candidates from other political parties, well and good. But to
anoint someone to take over the republican presidency whatever it takes, then
we start worrying about the lessons he is learning from President Mugabe.
President Mugabe has ruled Zimbabwe with an iron fist for
over three decades and has been known to manipulate polls and with it, the
flagrant use of violence to coerce people to vote for him and, as happened in
2008, traumatized opposition MDC leader Morgan Tsvagirayi into withdrawing from
a poll run-off.
Failure Of Intra-party Democracy
Without dwelling on national democracy, clearly PF
intra-party democracy is the victim here and it also just reflects the party’s
history in which office bearers have mostly been appointed by the party
founder, President Sata. Even the national convention that elected President
Lungu was flawed to a large extent as he, himself, was elected more by
acclamation than by ballot.
In fact, President Lungu fired some senior party officials and
appointed others in their place in the wake of the debacle of the
national conventions.
Already, there’s finger pointing in the PF with accusations
of some members harbouring ambitions of challenging President Lungu. Former Cabinet Minister in President Sata's administration, WylburSimuusa has been on the receiving end from PF
National Youth Chairman Chishimba Kambwili who is also Minister of Information
and Broadcasting who stated that there was no vacancy for presidency in the PF.
Whatever happens in the ruling party, political commentators
will have a lot on their plates.
[Photo credit: Henry Salim's Facebook page]
