Cast your gaze on SP 

By Daily Revelation Editor 

The Fred M’membe led Socialist Party has made headlines for the negative reasons this week, chiefly following the unceremonious removal of Antonio Mwanza from the position of deputy general secretary of the opposition party. It should not be lost on anyone that Antonio’s predecessor Frank Bwalya left the same position following a resignation from that party to join the ruling UPND.

The removal of Mwanza from his position was of course followed by the resignations of other senior party officials, including chairman for mobilisation Wilson Banda and director of research and training Lawrence Mwelwa.

Mwanza has not commented on why he was expelled, but Mwelwa and Mwanza have given their reasons for exiting the party, with their arguments centering around what they have described as undemocratic tendencies in M’membe’s leadership.

They have explained that they expect the Socialist Party to operate differently especially as a party that is in the forefront of criticising the undemocratic manner in the way the ruling UPND is going about administering matters.

Mwelwa for instance criticised several clauses in the party’s constitution where he says that a small group controls most decisions, arguing against a clause for instance which gives the central committee the power to nominate key leaders like the party president, general secretary and general treasurer, and that it’s actually the politburo members who make decisions.

“The leadership includes the President’s daughter and long-time friends, making it look more like a family-run company than a democratic party. The structure supports nepotism, where family and close friends benefit disproportionately,” Mwelwa argues further.

The leadership for its part has defended itself saying it was left with no option but to make a quick decision in order to remove Mwanza from his position as he was trying to form another party while holding on to his deputy general secretary position.

Now this is our take on these matters. Firstly, we are urging Zambians to take keen interest in the issues coming from the Socialist Party because this is a political party which is a public entity and is seeking to take over power in this country one day. Like any other public entity, we expect the Socialist Party to be more open, in fact not only to voluntarily avail itself to public scrutiny but to actually welcome more public scrutiny of its affairs. Generally, more public scrutiny should be extended to all the political parties in the country as these are people that have availed themselves publicly as seeking to take over public office to govern the affairs of all the Zambian people.

We know the Socialist Party is not a perfect institution as it is led by humans, and by nature human beings carry with them many flaws. But the key will be for the party to work on addressing their flaws as in doing so they will also be perfecting themselves for national leadership. The leaders in the SP cannot claim to know-it-all and be self righteous. If people are raising issues then there is definitely something that Fred and his comrades must address. We don’t agree that all these people that have resigned or left the SP did so because they were necessarily in the wrong. No! We urge Fred and his comrades to reflect seriously, especially on the allegations about concentrating power in the hands of a few individuals, plus all the allegations about lack of democracy in the organisation. If Fred and his comrades are rightly pushing for the enjoyment of more rights in the country, they must be seen to be doing the same in their own organisation, so that when trying to remove logs in other people’s eyes other accusing fingers will not be pointing right back at them.

Then coming to the arguments advanced by Musumali that Mwanza was fired for trying to form another party while holding to his party position. If indeed that is the position, we find Mwanza’s conduct unacceptable. And if that argument by Musumali is to be believed, an argument could be made that Mwanza was not working alone in trying to make that move Musumali is asserting he was making. He probably had sympathisers who may now have soured on their party after being caught pants down in their scheming. 

There is actually nothing wrong with forming or joining another party, but if you are going to do so, kindly do the needful by simply resigning in order to pursue other ventures. It is disloyalty of the highest order, especially if you are trying to form another party while holding on to a very senior position in your organisation.

All in all, if Zambians have been unaware about the SP, we urge them now to firmly place their gaze on this party and heighten their scrutiny, particularly on the matters going on there.