ZAMBIANS PROVE ONCE AGAIN THAT NO ONE OWNS THEM

By Daily Revelation Editor 

We first of all wish to use this opportunity to extend our hearty congratulations to President-elect Hakainde Hichilema and his party UPND for their resounding victory in the just ended general elections.

It is commendable also that outgoing President Edgar Chagwa Lungu and the PF have graciously conceded defeat and promised a smooth transition, and ensuring that our country continues with its enviable track record of peaceful transfers of power. At least on that score alone, Zambia stands heads and shoulders above the greatest nation on earth, the United States of America, where their 2020 general elections are still being disputed. If there is any country the US can learn valuable lessons from in terms of peaceful handovers they should look no further than Zambia.

For Hakainde and his UPND it was beginning to seem like they were becoming serial best losers, following their close second under Mazoka in 2001, third in 2006 under Hichilema, third in 2008, third in 2011, second in 2015, second in 2016 and finally first in 2021. One needs no further confirmation that if you persist in doing something, there is no mountain too high that you can’t surmount, nor ocean too deep and wide that you can’t cross. As the famous late statesman Nelson Mandela once said, “it always seems impossible, until it is done.” This is the spirit Hakainde should carry into government that no matter the challenges besetting the nation right now, including those he will face in his own administration, there won’t be any challenge too hard to overcome with focus and determination.

His was a resounding victory, never experienced since late Frederick Chiluba’s defeat of Dr Kenneth Kaunda. Of course the late Levy Mwanawasa and Michael Sata May argue that theirs were also resounding victories, particularly that they were contesting in a field that had three serious contenders. Yes there is an argument to be made there, but in Hakainde’s case, it has been a long time the nation last saw such kind of domination by an opposition party over a ruling party, in terms of winning in those 62 percent regions. In this election, Zambians across all the 10 provinces spoke with one voice, from Chiengi in Luapula to Kaputa, Senga-Hill, Mpulungu and Mbala in Northern Province; on to Isoka (Muchinga); Malambo, Sinda, Chadiza, Chipata-Central (Eastern); majority seats in Lusaka, Copperbelt and Central Province; plus all the seats in North-Western, Western and Southern provinces, Zambians spoke with one voice that they were tired of the ruling PF administration and that they wanted change.

They spoke again in no uncertain terms that this is One Zambia One Nation, and that what mattered to them was performance in government and not the tribe of any individual. This should send a message to our politicians, both in the outgoing PF and the incoming UPND, and all the other parties that Zambians are the real bosses, and that they detest any notion of a leader claiming to own them. This is one lesson the PF should have learnt from all the previous administrations. For instance in Chiluba’s case, the same Zambians who had resoundingly elected him with over 70 percent of the vote in 1991 rejected his attempts to go for a third term nine years later. In Rupiah Banda’s case, he thought his strongholds would save him against Sata, but just consider a few results from Nalolo, Mongu (Western Province), Chama North (Eastern Province), Bwacha (Central), Mpulungu, Senga Hill, Chimbamilonga (Northern) and Isoka (Muchinga) just to mention a few. Even in the 2021 elections, the PF were very confident that no matter how complacent, and no matter how they misbehaved, their “own strongholds of Copperbelt, Central, Lusaka, Eastern, Northern, Muchinga and Luapula provinces” would come through for them. But little did they understand the collective resolve of the Zambian people when they say enough is enough. For Zambians what matters when one is elected in government is performance, issues of jobs and bread and butter on their tables. All those politicians who in their considered view think they can resort to tribe in order to hold on to power or get into power, are simply wasting their time, because the seed of unity KK planted has now grown into a palm tree, which will always hold no matter the shaking it gets from the strongest of winds or hail storms.

Hakainde and the UPND you have been given a firm mandate by the Zambian people, you have theirs and our best wishes to succeed. Address those deficiencies people saw in the PF while fully implementing your promises to them. If you do that you will always have their support but if you become another PF, your stay in government will be short lived. Just consider the party you have removed from office, and the party they themselves removed from power, MMD. They both promised to entrench democratic values and rebuild state institutions before getting into power. However, no sooner had they gotten in than power got to their heads, they starting thinking of themselves, about third terms. Instead of rebuilding state institutions to serve the people, they instead modeled those institutions to serve their selfish ends. They turned the police service and courts into partisan institutions. The ACC, DEC and other investigative agencies were turned into puppet institutions to protect the powerful and oppress the weak. Public service was not about service to the people, but service to self, nichekeleko! How much is in it for me and my company, friends and relatives? All those they saw as obstacles in their crimes they fell on them like a tone of bricks. They closed important fourth estate institutions like The Post and Prime TV.

We are hopeful that the UPND government will take a different trajectory as the President-elect has promised. Please keep your word sir! You are taking over a very demanding office which will come with its huge challenges, temptations, enticements and criticism, but please hold your guard and focus on your noble goals. There will be temptations to benefit your family, friends and those briefcase businessmen who always want to be in good books with a ruling party. There will also be temptations when harsh criticisms start coming your way to shut public media space from those opposing your agenda and actions. However it should ring in you, that if public media did not save KK, Chiluba, Rupiah Banda and Edgar Lungu, it will surely not save you or any other individual for that matter when the real bosses summon their collective resolve.

All the best once again Mr President-elect, you have our support and the support of all genuine Zambians who want to see you succeed and fulfill your promises to the satisfaction of the people. When you succeed Zambia wins.