By Daily Revelation Editor
19 months after he was disgracefully removed from power, losing by close to one million votes to Hakainde Hichilema, talk or whispers of Edgar Lungu coming back is starting to be heard.
Fair to him, Edgar has not said publicly that he wants to stand, but from the narrative is gathering pace in some PF corners, and some very senior officials we have interacted with within PF have indicated that there is some inclination towards having Lungu run again as presidential candidate. Some have even pointed towards the delay in holding the convention as one of the indicators of room being left for him to come back and fill the “void he never left void.”
But a few questions must be answered first by those wanting a Lungu come back, including why they feel a person who was overwhelmingly rejected by Zambians should suddenly come back and rule Zambia again. The question is why was Edgar so unceremoniously voted out of office despite him having all the instruments of power and funds galore to fill up the famous black mountain in Kitwe?
For Edgar to have been voted out, it means he did something seriously wrong in the manner he managed national matters to have warranted such backslash from Zambians. Yes, there are a lot of positive things Lungu did. And indeed he was voted to do good always and not bad. It therefore means that despite the many good things he did, the bad far outweighed the good, otherwise Zambians wouldn’t have voted him out. We are definitely sure that Zambians are a reasonable lot and would not vote someone out if they believed that what that person had done was more good than bad.
Lest we forget, it was only a few months ago when we were seeing party cadres on the lose, some sleeping on mattress made up of money. We saw a proliferation of people who never had any discernible income become millionaires and property owners overnight. We saw how influential a party cadre became that just the sight of them made even the toughest of police officers want to pee in their trousers. Zambians have not forgotten the video where one police man was almost peeing in his trousers out of fear when one cadre was heard shouting “ba Bowman uyu alelanda ati ba President tabakawine (minister Bowman this man is saying the president will not win).”
What were once fringe violent clubs of ‘NATO forces” and ‘ama Amelican 1 or 2’ became mainstream and a part of our society during the time Lungu was president. To top it all Lungu called this idiocy part of his office when he proclaimed repeatedly that cadres were part of his office. As far as Zambians are concerned, the caderism that became ingrained in their minds when someone talks about cadres was the caderism of ‘ama Amelican’, ‘Nato forces’ and so on and so forth, who went about terrorising people in bus stations and markets. We all remember how at one point cadres overran the magistrates court grounds during a court appearance of then Health minister Dr Chitalu Chilufya. PF cadres would willfully demonstrate and take over streets any time they felt like unabated. This vice has not ended as it is still happening under the UPND, though on a quitter side or to a lesser degree but credit to Hakainde that he has at least been outspoken against such kind of misconduct.
We also need to remind ourselves that at the time of Lungu’s departure, economic growth had shrunk to less that -2.5 percent. Of course the advent of Covid-19 did not help matters, but even before that the economic situation in the country had rapidly deteriorated compounded by huge and insurmountable debt contracted by especially by Edgar’s PF administration, such that national debts were hitting around $14 billion at the time of his departure.
There was a general break down in the rule of law during Lungu’s reign, and no action was taken to address professionalism and independence in state institutions such as the police (who have carried on with their mediocre self even during the UPND administration), and institutions like the judiciary. Lungu rarely lost any court case in which he had a critical interest. For example, just from the very moment Lungu indicated that he was going to stand for re-election in the 2021 general elections, some of us took that in our stride and immediately believed he would stand regardless the court challenges that would come along. Before Lungu’s presidency, the country would immediately know how much a presidential and other candidates were worth following the filing in of nominations, but all that changed when people started raising questions on Edgar’s supersonic rise in wealth having risen from around K2.5 million to around K23 million in just one year. And Hakainde who promised to do things differently from Lungu and that he would be transparent in his dealings seems to agree with Lungu on this and is using the law to conveniently hide his asset value from the public for fear of public scrutiny.
Edgar was also a president who replaced Dr Denny Kalyalya with Christopher Mvunga at the Bank of Zambia.
In fact, just the mere fact there is some talk of a Lungu comeback should come as a serious indictment on Hakainde himself. He promised to run national affairs differently as a competent economist from the self-proclaimed visionless Lungu.
He has scored several positive strides in re-introducing bursaries for university students, and provision of free education, which truly is an upgrade on what the PF offered despite not being entirely free. He has increased the Constituency Development Fund from around K1.6 million per constituency to over K28 million, but that too needs to sort out some encumbrances to ensure its effective delivery. There has also been a speeding up of payment towards retirees among some of the positive strides Hakainde has scored. But just like it was said about Lungu and all the other presidents past, present and future, Hakainde was elected to do good always. However, several promises he said would be handled immediately he has failed to deliver on them. For instance he promised to reduce the price of fuel from K17 to less than K13 per liter, that of course is not the case as the price of petrol and diesel are now almost K30. He says this is so because of the war in Ukraine, but one of his first actions on being elected to office was to increase the price in fuel, a critical component in determining the cost of living in the economy, three months before the war in Ukraine.
Promises to reduce the price of fertilizer from K700 to K250 now seems like a pipedream as the same has skyrocketed to over K1200. The meal meal prices he promised to reduce to K50 per 25kg kilogramme bag is now fetching at over K170. The instability in the Kwacha he found on being elected and promised would rapidly appreciate because of the confidence his election would purportedly occasion, has continued, now fetching at over K20 to US$1, the same currency he said artificially appreciated to K17 before his election.
The general living standards, instead of improving seem to be worsening. Hakainde rightly condemned Lungu for skewing his appointments toward the eastern and northern regions of the country, he has managed a few tweaks here and there but only an unreasonable person would argue that he is not being hypocritical in that his appointments smack of regionalism. He has simply shifted the campus from North-East to South-West. In essence, Hakainde has a real chance to make his government truly national going by the national manner of his election. Remember, Hakainde won in Chienge (Luapula Province), Kaputa, Mpulungu, Mbala, Senga Hill (Northern Province) and emerged with decent results in the other northern regions where he lost. In Eastern Province, where Lungu hails from, the vote margin was split 51 to 49 percent. Copperbelt, Lusaka and Central provinces all came along for him in the 2021 elections outside his traditional strongholds of Southern, Western and North Western provinces which enabled him to truly decimate Lungu. Lungu never had the same luxury as Hakainde in terms of receiving meaningful votes from Southern, Western and North-Western provinces in all the three elections he participated in. That is not to excuse him, as he should have still found a way of balancing up. It is expected that whoever is elected president becomes president for the whole country and must govern in the same ‘One Zambia, One Nation’ motto the founding president Dr Kenneth Kaunda established in this county.
Hakainde surely has some time in his presidency to change course on several issues in the remaining three years and seven months of his time in office, and he fast do that. In doing so, he will need to listen to the voices especially of those raising valid observations on his governance. Those who are called praise singers too will need to change course and try to hold him more accountable on fulfilling his promises and governing well as there will be nothing to praise if he is voted out of office to follow Lungu to the streets. They should not dismiss valid observations being raised about Hichilema, including those coming from people who are known to be his sworn enemies or dislike him. It is not guaranteed to anyone that sound advice will only come from those you like or are friends with. Look at Hakainde as a human being who is bound to making mistakes and errors in judgment, and not a perfect angel who can never sin, self-seek or even engage in misconduct and make mistakes. When he is right, praise him and when he errors and his actions are not serving public interest, please call him out. Your overpraising him is what maybe partly contributing to these rising calls from people even entertaining talk of the person he defeated by one million votes coming back again to take over from him, because you are failing to call him out when he fails so that he corrects path.
While, Hakainde has got some time to rectify issues in the three years remaining on his term, and it better be fast, as he risks hardening peoples views on him such that any progress that may come in times leading up to the 2026 general elections will be viewed as election gimmickry, one wonders what those who feel Lungu should come back will achieve if he were given another term which he did not do in his two terms of office spanning seven years.
Besides that, if Hakainde fails what makes some think that he should be replaced by Lungu? You mean Zambians are that dumb to replace one they deem a failure with another one they already deemed a failure? Is Zambia short of men or women to run for president? Is the PF short of people to replace Lungu? And are there no other Zambians in other political parties or even general citizenry who can replace Hichilema if we deem him to be a failure as opposed to Lungu?
One thing we are sure of is that Zambians, despite being vulnerable to the occasional chimwela syndrome, which possesses them during election times, are very reasonable human beings.
