Knowing your enemy

The political uprisings that have taken place in North Africa and Syria bring to mind the political uprisings of 1848 in Europe – they are calls for political, social and economic reforms. The nature of all these political revolutions emerges from an economic background in which wealth exists side by side with poverty. That is to say that workers and students in oil-producing nations have risen against their aristocratic rulers demanding political freedom and economic empowerment. We in the WSM have come to notice one important thing from the nature of these political uprisings in Libya, Bahrain and Syria. Mass demonstrations that are not well equipped are being met with brutal resistance from the armed forces. This is a political lesson to those who advocate revolution through unparliamentary methods.

It is feared in Zambia today that if the Patriotic Front fails to win the presidential election (2011), mass demonstrations will take place. But mass demonstrations in Zambia are characterised by mob violence – stoning vehicles and looting private property. The Zambia police will react and innocent lives will be lost. To contemplate of a political failure in Zambia will in itself be a bad omen for parliamentary democracy conceived under multi-partyism. Political change brings with it social and economic collapse.

This was the case when the MMD came into power in 1991. The privatisation of the mining giant ZCCM has led to massive job losses and economic dislocation on the Copperbelt mining towns. New mining companies rely on foreign sourced labour and contractors. The new private mining companies create few jobs and are thus capital intensive. This is very common in Chinese-owned mines – walking in the Zambian cities today it is common to find that many educated workers and general workers have a natural respect for the British and white South African investors than with the Chinese. The Chinese have a habit of punching and shooting at striking workers. The labour relations in Chinese-owned mines remain very poor. Because nearly all the copper mining companies are owned by foreign conglomerates, the recent rise in copper prices on the London stock exchange has meant these favourable balance of payments have not translated into increased incomes and social development.
Indeed, structural unemployment exists on the Copperbelt when one looks at the kind of jobs being on offer on the labour market.

The ruling MMD is haunted by the political largesse of the late President Mwanawasa in the sense that President Rupiah Banda is expected to accomplish the political and economic benchmarks left by Mwanawasa. The fight against corruption and the implementation of a new and lasting constitution are among the foremost tasks Banda must contend with. But the rejection of a new Constitution Bill in parliament has sent wrong signals to the survival of the MMD. When the majority demand for political change at any price – parliamentary democracy remains very perplexing in the sense that a wrong leader may come to power was the case in Germany¸ when the Nazi Party come to power.

Though I may seem so hard in lampooning the political misfortunes of the MMD, yet we in the WSM do not envisage a political alternative to capitalism in Zambia apart from formulating the long-standing political and economic demand for an end to wage slavery and the exploitation of man by man. Personally, I find Banda to be an honest fellow trapped in the dirty politics of capitalism – dogged like everyone else by the brutal forces of ethnic and tribal loyalties. Power and wealth in most African countries remains under the legacy of conventional politics – politics is a crust of social and economic privileges.

In Zambia the political opposition parties have quickly likened the political events taking place in North Africa to the situation prevailing in Zambia today. Indeed there is a reluctance by the MMD leadership to resolve the 51 percent clause demanded by the majority in the New Constitution. By this means it is believed a presidential election needs to be re-run whenever a contender fails to win a 51 percent margin. The ruling MMD has deleted the clause from the proposed and amended Constitution.

Because Zambia will face a tripartite general election in 2011, the church and political opposition parties are demanding the setting up of a parallel voting tabulation (PVT) so that voters may know in advance who has won or lost an election. Banda has warned those advocating PVT in that it was illegal and was not enshrined in the current Zambian Constitution. The demise of the PF-UNDP political pact has given strength to the MMD – this must be glimpsed behind the ethnic and tribal loyalties that tend to determine voting patterns. The PF is strongly supported in Luapola, Northern, Copperbelt and Lusaka provinces. The MMD is widely supported in Central, Eastern and Western provinces. The UPND under Hakainde Hichilema remains strongly based in Southern Province. Recent parliamentary elections have seen the PF gaining a foothold in North Western, Eastern and Western Provinces. The ruling MMD, though crippled by corruption has done well in building new roads and opening up mines in rural areas. The PF has become the second and largest political party in Zambia today – and given the flamboyant personality of its leader Michael Sata, it may seem that many people in Zambia are interested in regime change in the sense that the MMD has been in power since 1991.

But what they do not contemplate is the plain fact that political and economic reforms being advocated by PF president Sata will evaporate into thin air once the PF comes into office. The voters are only used as cannon fodder by the political parties. The WSM remains politically defensive when dealing with amorphous political revolutions taking place in North Africa and elsewhere. Political revolutions do not change the existing economic and political status quo – it is a mere change in political bosses.
K. MULENGA, Zambia

Letter from Zambia

Africa is a vast continent comprised of nations which because of their colonial past have different histories, just as they have variegated geographical landmarks that distinguish them. Thus African nations do not share many things in common except the forcible grouping together of tribes regardless of the interaction that existed before colonialisation.

In the attempt to create nations, different ethnic groups have been split between boundaries and the expression of nationalism has therefore not been through the medium of cultural or ethnic identity, but defined within the context of the country in which the language of the colonial master became the lingua franca.

It is imperative to note, therefore, that such a situation in which countries find themselves has made nation building and African unity a difficult task.
The political developments taking place in Zambia today are African in nature and therefore similar and comparable to political events taking place elsewhere. In Africa, parliamentary democracy defined through multi-party politics still remains a test case today. Political leaders in Africa are finding it hard to relinquish power through the medium of the ballot box. The current political scenario in Zambia may easily degenerate into political violence if left unabated. The Catholic church and some western NGOs have kept on to criticise the ruling MMD government both through the press and privately-owned radio stations. Radio ICENGELO – owned by the Catholic church has become the mouthpiece of the voiceless people on the Copperbelt.

The widening gap between the rich and poor is something the ruling MMD government of President Rupiah Banda does not seem to be concerned about. Indeed, privatisation of the Zambian economic sector can only succeed by strengthening the private- and profit-making social sector, otherwise than defending and safeguarding the economic upkeep of the peasants and workers.

Massive and periodic job losses in the formal and informal sector have come to characterise the economic policy of Zambia’s economic liberation ever since the MMD came to power in 1991 to date. During the leadership of Dr. Kenneth Kaunda education was subsidised by the state and every child had a right to free education from primary school to university level. Every year the UNIP government carried out massive recruitments of teachers, doctors, nurses, policemen and soldiers.

The change from one-party participating democracy to multi-party democracy saw the implementation of economic liberalism (defined as privatisation) under the MMD government of President Fredrick Chiluba. This entailed the liquidation of state-owned mining, industrial and financial companies. The privatisation of state-owned companies led to massive job losses – in most cases the retrenched workers have not yet received their retirement salaries.

But we cannot mop up the fact that the UNIP government had experienced economic decline from 1980 to 1991 – the MMD inherited a bankrupt economy as the case may be. But it must be emphasised that the manner in which privatisation was carried out by the MMD was less than transparent.
It was in an attempt to monopolise power that Kaunda introduced a one-party state in 1973 on the excuse that Zambia was facing tribalism under multi-party politics. He introduced the philosophy of humanism in order to weld the different ethnic groups together under “One Zambia One Nation”. He declared a state of emergency – political detentions without trial (political criticism was banned). It is a fact that both the ruling MMD and political opposition have shown no restraint in manipulating the masses through feeding them with prejudices against other tribes in order to win their support. Thus tribalistic sentiments in Zambia originate from politicians or political parties. The voting patterns that emerged from the previous three general elections depict tribal and regional allegiances in the sense that people voted on the basis of ethnic patronage.

Every economic gain achieved under the late President Levy Mwanawasa has been dissipated by the global economic downturn of 2009, making it possible for the PF leader Michael Sata to increase votes in the coming 2011 elections. General elections in urban areas of Zambia are determined by economic factors, especially for food prices, the cost of education and availability of employment. The ruling MMD has concentrated on building roads, hospitals, schools and subsiding peasant farmers. In rural areas where the party received massive votes, working class political consciousness is visibly absent in rural village communities. The failure of African leaders to relinquish power through the medium of the ballot box means that elections in Africa are conducted in a win-or-die situation. The experience of many African nations with regard to their armed forces have been sad in that they have stifled democracy with their intervention, purportedly in their attempt to correct the mistakes of their political bosses also had failed to adhere to the principle of democracy through perceived violations of the constitution. When military leaders come into power, they not only breach the constitution, they become traitors to the oath of allegiance they swore to the nation.

The reluctance of the ruling MMD to accept the PF and UPND as viable future political options is a bad omen for multi-party politics in Zambia.

Socialism is the only practical political alternative to capitalism and our message to the workers of Zambia remains the same – the creation of a classless moneyless and stateless society.
KEPHAS MULENGA

Letter from Zambia

Zambia is showered in condolences. President Levy Mwanawasa passed away in Percy Military hospital in Paris on 19 August.

Indeed, many ordinary Zambians are troubled by the untimely death of the president in the sense that every individual is unique. The people of Zambia are pious mourners and have turned up in large numbers wherever the coffin of Mwanawasa was being paraded for last farewells. The MMD has declared 21 days of national mourning. But some political think tanks are critical of the government’s motive and have seriously castigated them for parading the coffin around the country. They consider it to be a mere political gimmick aimed at winning the political confidence of the Zambian voters.

There is a succession crisis within the MMD. The current constitution allows for the holding of a party convention when adopting a presidential contender. But the MMD has unilaterally decided to select a candidate through the National Executive Committee. This move is untransparent and undemocratic. There are calls within the MMD hierarchy for the adoption of the current Vice-President Rupiah Banda (UNIP). The following have submitted their names for adoption as presidential aspirants from the MMD:
Willa Muyamba, Enoch Kavindele, Brian Chituwo and Ludwig Sondashi…

All the above-mentioned individuals are well-to-do MMD stalwarts. The wife of the late president Doreen Mwanawasa is proving a hard nut to crack in the sense that she is indirectly campaigning for the MMD through accompanying her husband’s coffin to every part of Zambia. Indeed, she even went to the extent of publicly humiliating the Patriotic Front president Michael Sata during a body-viewing ceremony at Chipata airport (Eastern Province). She railed at Sata in an unbecoming manner for a bereaved widow. It is said that she told Sata to stop attending the funeral. She told him that she had not reconciled with him. Sata had a political reconciliation with the late president in June. When Mwanawasa died in France Sata was among the prominent leaders who received the coffin at Lusaka International airport on 23 June.

Politics in Zambia are strongly influenced by ethnic and tribal loyalties. The MMD is a tribal party in the sense that the late president appointed people on the basis of their ethnic and tribal backgrounds. The current crop of ministers comprise of nephews and cousins of Mwanawasa. The entire MMD leadership is peopled by Lenje- and Lamba-speaking political appointees.

The ruling MMD currently enjoys massive support in rural areas. It is utterly impossible for the MMD to lose a presidential election given the positive economic policies of the late president Mwanawasa. Zambia’s favourable economic development is dependent upon the copper mining industry that is currently enjoying favourable prices on the stock exchange in London. Zambia remains a class-divided society with poverty and unemployment remains unappeased.
K. MULENGA, Zambia

ZAMBIA: CONSITITUTIONAL FRAUD

From a comrade in Zambia :-

Karl Marx was certain that the economic and political reforms taking place in his time were paving they way to a working class inspired political revolution (socialism). But what Marx did not foresee was that the ruling class was going to intensify its accumulation of political and economic privileges that has remained to the present day.

It is in this sense that we in the WSM do not support political and economic reforms. We do not believe that there is a government that can put in place a working class inspired political constitution that shall undermine the political and economic privileges of the ruling elite. This we may infer that political constitutions are mere political statements—political and economic privileges remain where they have always remained: with the capitalist class. We in the WSM firmly believe that the MMD government under President Levy Mwanawasa cannot adopt the recommendations of the Mung’omba Constitutional Review Commission because to do otherwise will entail the unilateral limitation of its political and economic privileges.

The National Constitutional Conference (NCC) is a political fraud created by President Levy Mwanawasa to sideline the formation of a constitutional assembly that was recommended by the Mung’omba Constitutional Review. That is why the Catholic church and some opposition parties have boycotted the NCC. More or less the vast amounts of money given to delegates contradicts the main reasons President Levy Mwanawasa had given against the setting up of a constitutional assembly.

The NCC is a slap on the face of poor and disgruntled Zambians—it only shows the empty blind alleys where capitalism can lead the workers. Zambia is historically handicapped by ethnic and tribal allegiances, and it is a matter of political conjecture to infer that the workers and peasants in Zambia are in support of a constitutional assembly. This is so because the political statements being uttered by diverse political parties in Zambia does not in reality reflect the actual voting patterns that emerged during the 2006 general elections. People voted for the political parties to which they have close ethnic and tribal affinities.

Constitution reviews liberate no-one. The market system creates nothing beyond profit and misery—the ideological claims that capitalism is an efficient system just don’t stand up to any genuine examination.

This is proved in Africa where the prevalence of abundant minerals and oil reserves are failing to lead to economic development.

KEPHAS MULENGA , Zambia