“PF SG sole candidature syndrome must be stopped”

Davis Mwila

Electoral Expert MacDonald Chipenzi has charged that the ruling party’s Secretary General Davies Mwila is off the democracy mark and must be stopped.

Chipenzi says bringing in the sole candidature syndrome was undemocratic and should not be allowed.

Mwila has announced that President Edgar Lungu is the preferred candidate for the ruling -PF in the 2021 presidential elections.

FODEP Executive Director McDonald Chipenzie

However, Chipenzi says:

POLITICAL Parties must at all cost avoid championing and promoting the “sole candidate syndrome” whenever party conventions approach as that is an indication of a sick intraparty democracy.

It seems Davies Mwila does not know his role and functions as an SG of a party or indeed is just playing politics of patronage to please the appointing authority. It is absolutely wrong, unnecessary and premature for Davies Mwila to insinuate that his party has already settled for its favoured candidate to lead the PF to the next 2021 general election. This is against the spirit and letter of any credible, free and fair democratic elections within a party that members must exercise at the party convention without a predetermined and pre-selected candidates.

In as much as pre-voting is allowed in any electoral sphere, pre-announcement of the winner is against the spirit of fair and free electoral play. One may be forced to ask as which PF party Mwila is talking about and which organ of the PF has already settled for the sole candidature of President Lungu for the 2021 general elections save for attention seeking surrogates? Just to remind him that some of his senior party members have already raised a red flag over the issue of endorsement and most of them are members of the Central Committee of the party, so which organ has unanimously adopted President Lungu?

Let me agree here with Chishimba Kambwili that democracy does not tolerate short cuts. The due process of the party electoral law or national law must be followed as shortcuts are a recipe for divisions, disorder and lawlessness. The only time the PF SG will be justified to make such a sweeping statement is when the PF comes out of an elective convention and have chosen one of their party member to represent them in general elections. He will be in order to declare that his party has already settled for a candidate to represent it during the 2021 general elections. In this vein, he would be speaking to other contending political parties and not to the PF members, as it would be like preaching to the already converted followers.

The irony of it is that SG Mwila is acting like he is also a contender or has already taken sides on who he will support at the party convention which is extremely dangerous. This is so because he will be the main man ahead of the convention receiving nomination papers etal. How fair is he going to be with his predetermined position on a candidate? Now, imagine if his preferred candidate loses and another person carries the day at the Convention, which is a great possibility or President Lungu is barred by the republican Constitution from recontesting the national presidency, what would SG Mwila say and what would be his relationship with the winning candidate?

SG Mwila must tread very carefully or risk being fired by the new president to be elected at the party Convention. Being an SG does not mean taking sides on internal party matters but only facilitating smooth operations of the secretariat and also entails being neutral and accommodative in one’s statements to all party members so as not to injure any of them especially aspirants. He must allow all politicians in his party to fight out their own democratic battles while using the party secretariat freely without anyone feeling favoured or disfavoured, intimidated or harassed by secretariat. That is what internal democracy dictates.

If this quote by SG Mwila is correct “I guided whilst in Kasama, I said we had a preferred candidate by the name of Mr. Edgar Chagwa Lungu, and I referred to America and the UK (United Kingdom) democracy that the incumbent is not supposed to be challenged. That is what I referred to”.

But if this statement is directed towards some PF members also interested in the position of the party presidency, then he is off the democratic mark. His statement is injurious to intra-party democracy and the spirit of holding free and fair elections in the party as it is meant to discourage and intimidate other party members with ambitions to contest the party presidency to exercise their constitutional freedoms and rights.

Such statements are misplaced in a party claiming to be democratic, tolerant and accommodative. If intraparty democracy is to prevail in Zambian political parties, SGs like Mwila must allow and accommodate all those interested to participate in the party contests to do so without making a presumptuous statements that all party members are agreeable an incumbent President will be their presidential candidate in general elections well before party elective conventions have decided who will be a flag carrier. That is a clear sign of using short cuts in a democracy which Kambwili recently talked about and must not be tolerated.