HH caught in a web of self-deception

By Daily Revelation Editor

Self-deception or self-delusion, according to the Oxford dictionary, is defined as the action or practice of allowing oneself to believe that a false or unvalidated feeling, idea, or situation is true. It is a tendency to view oneself in an “unrealistically” favorable light.
This is exactly what we witnessed last Thursday with our President Hakainde Hichilema when he announced that he had “guided” justice minister Princess Kasune to defer Bill 7 for consideration in Parliament which Bill she had introduced there the previous day.
This, the President said, was to allow for more engagement and consultations with the various stakeholders, after his engagement with the church and other civil society organisations two days earlier. Immediately after that, chief government spokesperson Cornelius Mweetwa and Kasune herself were squeezed into ZNBC and Diamond TV’s presentaions of their live main news to explain how the President was such a listening man.

The following morning, the print media were awash with headlines on how President Hichilema had won himself kudos for listening to the voice of reason. We also opined in this column, adding to those praises for President Hichilema.
However, before those headlines could even circulate far and wide, the Constitution Court delivered its judgment, declaring that the ongoing Constitutional amendment process (Bill 7) was neither consultative nor broad-based, and, therefore, unconstitutional. The court, as a consequence, ordered the government to halt the ongoing Constututional amendment process and embark on a rather more consultative and broad-based approach.
This followed the decision by former lawmaker Munir Zulu and Tonse Alliance national youth chairperson Celestine Mukandila to petition the Constitution Court, seeking an order that the current Constitutional amendment process was unconstitutional as it was not consultative, not broad-based and did not carry the general citizenry with it.
And this is where President Hichilema’s self-deception or self-delusion comes in. Why do we so conclude? It is because as late as a few hours before justice minister Kasune introduced Bill 7 in Parliament, President Hichilema met the church and some civil society members at State House. The church, and others in this meeting, informed the President of their valid reasons in opposition to his constitutional amendment process for, inter alia, ill-timing and lacking legitimacy due to non-consultation with the members of the public and other critical stakeholders, as a criticall ingredient required in a legitimate constition-making process.

But the President dismissed this and justified why he was going ahead to amend the national Constitution despite the widespread opposition and condemnation across the board. He actually suggested that the spirited opposition to his constitutional amendment process was based on hatred against him and not any better reason. He said all three ruling parties before his amended the Constitution and couldn’t understand why today the public didn’t want his ruling UPND to do so.
He claimed that all his opposers hated him, and considered him as a “pariah”, an outcast. Therefore, he was determined to go ahead because the opposition to this process was not legitimate. The question of ill-timing was misplaced, he said, because the UNIP, MMD and PF governments all amended the Constitution in election years of 1991, 1996 and 2016, respectively. President Hichilema, therefore, wondered why Zambians today should object to UPND’s government intention to amend the Constitution in an election year or a period closer to elections. And that how his justice minister proceeded to introduce Bill 7 in Parliament the following day.
However, immediately thereafter, after realising – so we infer – that the Constitution Court was to deliver a damning judgment against him, halting this process, President Hichilema abruptly announced that he had “guided” Princess Kasune to defer Bill 7 in order to accommodate more consultations and broader engagements with various stakeholders after listening to advice and counsel of the church and the civil society organisations.
After carefully analysing this development, we can conclude with an educated guess that only gullible people will buy this deception from the highest office in the land.
Critical thinkers and analysts will see things as they are; that President Hichilema has been caught in a web of self-deception or delusion. He could have been given a benefit of the doubt if, at the end of his Tuesday meeting with the church and civil society members at State House, he said he was going to reflect on their submissions and, thereafter, revert to inform them on the way forward. Alas, he was busy lecturing to them on how he should not be stopped from amending the Constitution because he was not the “pariah” they thought he was.
In our view, President Hichilema could have won genuine kudos if at the end of his Tuesday consultative meeting at State House, he made the announcement that, “having listened to your advice and counsel, I will be instructing the Minister of Justice not to introduce Bill 7 in Parliament tomorrow until wider consultations and broader engagements with various stakeholders are achieved.” In this way, President Hichilema’s ministers and the general public could have genuinely acknowledged him as “a listening leader”.
We hope President Hichilema and his handlers in the Public Relations (PR) department have learnt some valuable lessons from this experience. In our training as journalists, we learnt that telling lies and half-truths should not constitute or be part of any PR activity. This is because lies and half-truths backfire badly and have the potential to permanently dent or injure the reputations of the individuals or institutions they desire or seek to project in a positive light.