Here comes the heavyweight championship fight of the Zambian world: ECL versus HH
Hichilema
Lungu
By Munyonzwe Hamalengwa, Ph. D.
Zambians, here we go. In this corner stands the challenger, Hakainde Hichilema, otherwise known as HH, wearing red pants and in this other corner stands the heavyweight champion of Zambia, Edgar Chagwa Lungu, ECL wearing blue pants. Zambians, this is a rematch of last year’s contest which ended almost in a draw, with only 27,000 votes separating the victor the champion from the challenger. That was the slimmest margin of victory in the history of heavyweight championship fights in Zambian election history. Some attribute the near draw to the weather conditions at the time, some attribute it to rigging, some attribute it to the sympathy factor because the champion’s predecessor, a very popular champion had died while holding the championship and the judges wanted the inheritor to continue holding the championship belt. Others attribute the victory to the defection of a former champion RB from his own party to add musculature to the champion’s team. Zambians, we will never know.
Zambians, it is stated that history repeats itself. The first time it is tragedy. The second time it is farce. Was it a tragedy to give the championship to ECL last year? Was it a tragedy for the challenger to lose? Will it be a farce to give the victory to the champion again this year or will it be a farce to give it to HH?
Now Zambians, before the slugfest begins, lets us pause to reflect on the qualities of these contestants but before we do that I wish to warn the protagonists. Gentlemen, this is not your country alone. Zambians have fought very hard to keep this country in relative peace. Restrain your cadres, particularly you the champion because you have the means to do so. You know who is perpetrating the violence surrounding this championship fight. You control the intelligence system. You control the police. You control the army. Hourly reports reach your ears about who precisely is inciting violence. You never blame your cadres about the violence they perpetrate while you accuse the challenger’s. You know who the perpetrators are. You also have the state funded media at your disposal, they report every training session you conduct while ignoring the training methods of your challenger. Is this state weaponry used fairly? This is not your money, it is taxpayers’. Is this a fair fight you are involved in? Tell the state media to report fairly.
To the challenger, what is your responsibility if you see your cadres engage in uncalled for violence against the champion’s cadres? Are your cadres violent?
Gentlemen. Let’s make this a fair fight. Zambians count on you. No low blows. No cheating. No rigging. No violence.
Zambians now for the extended presentation of the main qualities of the contenders. Let’s give a round of applause to the combatants. ECL has proven to be an effective leader of the PF. You remember how fractured his party was in the camp when the founder of the camp died in October 2014? Factions arose and nearly tore the camp apart. It is an unexplained mystery that the camp managed to still win the championship battle in January 2015. Despite that internal combustion, the party has coalesced around the champion. The camp has been afflicted with further defections since then but the camp has still remained intact. The champion ECL appears to exude the common touch, the likability quotient, a person you can have a beer with after he climbs down from the ring. He must be applauded for his common touch. All he needs to do is not to keep a blind eye to the violence inflicted by his handlers. He also needs to be seen to be the clearest leader of the pack as there are just two many mouths opening and talking from that camp.
Zambians, HH had the unenviable task of inheriting a camp of a dead popular leader in 2006 and has kept that camp intact for ten years. There have been no rocking defections, despite several losses in electoral campaigns. The challenger seems to have built a formidable fighting machine . The camp is truly original. Everybody knows who the leader of this camp is as he is firm and he exudes confidence in everybody that they will land safely at harbour. The vision is prevalent. The knowledge of Zambian economics is at the leader’s finger-tips. The camp knows that they can sleep well because the driver is trustworthy.
Zambians, this fight feels like a rematch of 2011 and not that of 2015. This feels like de’javu. Zambians have been there before, replaying the exact same scenario. In 2011 there was champion RB who had inherited the championship from Mwanawasa and speculation is that he won the championship in 2008 because of the sympathy vote from the judges. The judges wanted to test him and give him another mandate to prove his championship. Was it worthy it to try him again in 2011? Was he tested, tried and trusted (TTT)? Was he proven?
RB had continued some of Mwanawasa’s programmes but as an accidental champion, he didn’t have his own vision. Accidental champions and presidents rarely have visions, except Lyndon Johnson of the USA who succeeded Champion John Kennedy in 1963. Champion RB gave the impression that he was just bumbling through without his own imprimatur, his own style. He was not his own man. He was not the best of leaders. He had not planned for it. He was just called to fill someone’s shoes.
The champion RB thought that the challenger MCS was so far out of left field that the judges of Zambia could not possibly vote for MCS. He was disdainful of MCS. He RB the champion felt that all he needed despite his total lack of championship credentials was to throw all the money at the judges of Zambia, commission big time economic projects and infrastructure and show them in state owned newspapers and public broadcaster, show his face on chitenges all over the country and the judges will vote for him! He was badly mistaken and shaken.
The champion RB also threw the kitchen sink and all state apparatus against the challenger MCS through the use of the Public Order Act, insults and tear gas. The cadres were unleashed and tried to inflict damage. The challenger MCS did not flinch. He had a vision. He trusted the judges despite all the names he had been called, all the scare tactics that would even have felled a mighty lion.
Zambians, is this championship fight going along the same trajectory? Is the champion ECL not like champion RB? Hasn’t he traversed the same road as RB? Didn’t he inherit the championship belt in an accidental fashion like RB? Didn’t he win the championship in 2015 like RB did in 2008 because the judges wanted to reward the fallen real champion, not the accidental one? Didn’t Champion ECL state clearly that he had no vision but merely carrying on the blue print of the true champion MCS?
Zambians, isn’t champion ECL behaving in this championship fight like champion RB behaved? Using the Public Order Act to deal with the challenger? Using the state funded public media and broadcaster to only show his training videos to win the judges’ votes? Doesn’t he use the cadres while talking peace and non-violence? Doesn’t he use his championship credentials to insult and demean the challenger? Isn’t he like RB using state resources to commission this project after another just before the election thinking the judges will vote for him? The judges of Zambia will decide.
Zambians, isn’t HH behaving the way challenger MCS at the time of RB was behaving? Putting his vision across despite the overwhelming odds and obstacles placed against him by champion ECL? Are we going to see a repeat of the same exact result that MCS engineered against RB, this time HH against champion ECL?
The referee the ECZ plays a crucial role in all championship fights. If the referee is corrupt, the results can be manipulated. Champion Chiluba told Shaka Ssali on VOA that he had rigged the elections of 2001 in favour of his protege Mwanawasa against Anderson Mazoka.
The referee of 2011 was incorruptible. The referee of 2016 will be incorruptible. The judges will be the final arbiters, and not the referee. They will determine whether the champion’s victory of 2015 was a tragedy and this one a farce or a new beginning.
Like the championship fight of 2011, the judges have a lot of objective questions that have nothing to do with age, gender, race, tribe, region, or pure ungrounded motions of hate or love but in the best interests of having a champion who will stir Zambia successfully to navigate the future economic terrain for Zambians’ benefit. Does the emerging champion have the triple Ts, the TTTs that I have mentioned above? The contenders have to answer the following questions and more and no one should be allowed to become a champion in this contest without successfully answering these questions:
2011 Sept 2015 Jan. 2016 June
Km of roads built ? ?
Jobs created since and up to
Jobs lost since and up to
Price of mealie meal
Increase in price of mealie meal
Dollar and kwacha exchange rate
Price of petrol, decrease or increase
Amount in debt, decrease or increase
Existence of load shedding, present or not
Cost of load shedding on business
Cost of borrowing decrease or decrease
Rate of inflation, increase or decrease
Number of Ministers and Deputies
Civil servants paid on time
Infrastructure built since and up to
Hospitals built
Schools built
Constitution enacted fully
Use of Public Order Act
Level of Corruption
Level of wealth of President and Ministers
Change of life in rural areas
Change of life in shanty compounds
Level of participation of women
Salary increases for President and Ministers
Salary increases for civil servants
Salary increases for ordinary workers
Performance of the Judiciary
Performance of the Police
Level of political civility
Level of political violence
What other questions do judges of Zambia have?
They shall know them by their answers which cannot be faked because the judges know the true answers with full evidence before their eyes as they experience these questions daily.
Dr. Munyonzwe Hamalengwa teaches law at Zambian Open University School of law.