The ruling Movement for Multiparty Democracy faces a complex mix of constitutional, ethical and ethnic considerations in the run up to next year’s electoral campaigning, writes Kedrick Chisamu
Ahead of Zambia’s next general election, scheduled for October or November 2011, there is already much lively debate over the country’s political future. The issues at stake are likely to determine whether President Rupiah Banda can win again, having only narrowly beaten Michael Sata of the opposition Patriotic Front (PF) in the presidential election of October 2008, which followed the death in office of former President Levy Mwanawasa.
First on the list of concerns is the government’s failure to find consensus with representatives of the opposition parties and leading civic groups, over the crucial elements of a new Constitution. With little likelihood that the next elections will be held under the new Constitution, as the opposition parties had hoped, some analysts suggest that this s a cause that the government’s opponents ould still exploit to their advantage.
The President also faces the challenge f restoring confidence in Zambia’s fight gainst corruption. There have been accusations y some Western donors, the opposition arties and civic groups that the government as relaxed its earlier efforts. The issue evives questions about the continuing influence exerted in the ruling party, the Movement or Multiparty Democracy (MMD), by ssociates of the discredited former President rederick Chiluba – speculations which ave heightened following the latter’s acquittal n corruption charges.
While the leadership of the MMD is seen to be divided into different camps, President Banda is at least able to maintain some distance from the fray. He is not a long-standing member of the party – he previously served former President Kenneth Kaunda’s United Naional Independence Party, and only joined the MMD when he became Mwanawasa’s Vice-President in 2006. Despite its internal squabbles, the MMD is still considered by most analysts to be in a dominant position to win the 2011 elections, not least because of the weaknesses in the alliance between the two biggest opposition parties, the PF and the United Party for National Development (UPND).
Austin Mbozi, Lecturer in the Philosophy of Good Governance at the University of Zambia, told Global that most voters would be inclined to vote for Banda because of the revival in the economy. Also, as an easterner from the Chewa tribe, he is seen to be a neutral candidate when compared with Michael Sata, the head of the PF, who is from the long-dominant Bemba ethnic group, and the Tonga-speaking UPND leader Hakainde Hichilema. Mbozi noted that most Zambian voters are driven mainly by tribal considerations and tend to weigh up “whether the presidential candidate is from the tribe they favour or not, or whether he is standing against the tribe they favour or not”.
On the constitutional issue, senior ministers have blamed the opposition for attempting to discredit the process of reform with accusations that the MMD had an inbuilt majority in the National Constitutional Conference (NCC), the forum which examines proposed alterations. Key civil society groups and church bodies – which help to shape politics in Zambia and are influential in the opposition PF – boycotted the NCC, and the remaining delegates, numbering around 600, failed to reach a consensus on several critical issues. These included a submission that a president should be elected on a ‘50 percent plus one’ vote as opposed to the current simple majority, and another demanding a right to housing for all Zambians.
These disagreements will delay the countrywide referendum on the new Constitution, according to Works and Supply Minister Mike Mulongoti, who is also head of the MMD’s elections committee. “Where we have unanimity, we will take amendments to parliament and adopt them into law, but contentious issues will have to be referred to a referendum,” he said. “I don’t think there will be sufficient time to do a referendum before the elections.”
On the corruption issue, the government’s own admission in 2009 that senior civil servants had stolen $5 million of donor funds provided to the Ministry of Health, prompted Sweden and the Netherlands to withhold $33 million in health aid. The money was only released several months later, after the government had produced new measures to curb corruption. The Global Fund followed suit, withholding around $137 million earmarked for health programmes earlier this year, saying there was no accountability by the government in the handling of donor aid. Similarly the European Union froze €20 million for road development due to corruption concerns.
“Issues of corruption will surely hurt Rupiah Banda’s chances during the elections,” said Dr Chileshe Mulenga, a research fellow at the Institute for Economic and Social Research in Lusaka. Perhaps the major sticking point is the failure by the authorities to appeal against a magistrate court decision to acquit former President Frederick Chiluba, who had been facing charges of the theft of nearly $500,000 in treasury funds.
Chiluba, whose prosecution had been ordered by the late President Mwanawasa, despite being his hand-picked successor, has maintained his innocence saying he was a victim of a political witch-hunt. “The failure to appeal that court decision, when public opinion was that the government must do so, is a big blunder by the President and it is going to haunt him,” Dr Mulenga said.
After he took over power from Chiluba in 2002, Mwanawasa claimed to have found evidence of corruption by the former head of state and, when he went to parliament to seek the removal of Chiluba’s immunity from prosecution, Zambia started to win praise as a country newly committed to fighting corruption. A wide anti-graft campaign saw several former senior government officials, including ex-intelligence chief Xavier Chungu, and former finance minister Katele Kalumba, jailed for corruption after the courts found them guilty of the theft of public funds. Chiluba’s wife Regina was also jailed after a magistrates’ court said she had received stolen property from her husband, but she has appealed the decision and a fresh ruling by the Lusaka High Court has been keenly awaited.
The issue of corruption may have brought the integrity of the government leadership into question, but most of the recent tension has revolved around the fate of the constitutional amendments. But with many months still to go before the elections, big decisions at the party level could influence the final outcome, and Zambians will be paying more-than-usual attention to the upcoming convention of the ruling MMD due to be held later this year.
