Chipimo: If Elected To Presidency, I Will Only Serve One Term

NAREP president Elias Chipimo Jr says if Zambians give him a chance to be President, he will only run for one term.
Chipimo says this has been his ambition not to go more than five years as it is common with African leaders who then end up being corrupt.
“If elected, I will only serve one term of office and make it clear throughout my presidency that this is my ambition. I am firmly committed to this. One of the reason why we have so much corruption in Zambia and Africa as a whole is that the focus of politicians tends to be acquiring and holding onto power at any cost,” Chipimo says.
Chipimo says because of the very high levels of poverty-driven dependency, this is taken advantage of by the politicians who use their privileged positions to enrich themselves and use the money to feed this poverty-induced dependency in their people.
“I do not want to continue to perpetuate this approach and the only way I can see to successfully avoid this is to make the commitment to only serve one term. By doing so, I will be free to make the hard but right decisions that can bring real and meaningful change without fear that I will not be elected if the changes are not initially popular,” he says.
Chipimo adds, “Serving only one term will free me from the psychophants that will urge me to do the wrong things for the sake of holding onto power. It will also require me to work flat out to build a good succession plan. Succession seems to be a dirty word in Zambia but we need to always be thinking of working ourselves out of a job and building others up to take over from us and creating an environment where they will not only build upon what we have achieved but will go on to do even greater things than us.”
But when told that he will change his mind once he tests power, Chipimo says “Let’s wait and see. I am quite a determined man and I know what I want to do from day 1 to day 1,825.”
Chipimo who cites the achievements made by Tanzania President John Magufuli says he will have short and long term goals and groom a successor to carry on.
” There are short-term goals and long-term goals. I will start the building blocks. Look at what President Magufuli of Tanzania has been able to achieve in less than two years. I believe I can and will set clear goals that will make a solid impact within a short period of time. As for succession, this should be the goal of every leader – a leader should assume that he or she cannot guarantee that they will be available beyond any given day and they must always build capacity for an organisation to live beyond them at any moment. That is true leadership,” observes Chipimo.
Many leaders say what Chipimo is saying but immediately they get elected, and feel how sweet the presidency is the language changes that “people want me to continue.”
Second president Frederick Chiluba who propagated for the limit of the presidential tenure to two terms, but later wanted a third term once confirmed that he did not know how sweet the position was.