[Ugnet] Zambian Politics...
Opposition seeks Pact Email This Page Print This Page VisitThePublisher'sSite The Post (Lusaka) May 26, 2005 Posted to the web May 26, 2005 Amos MalupengaLusaka FIVE opposition parties are discussing the possibility of forming a rainbow coalition in a bid to come up with one presidential candidate to challenge President Levy Mwanawasa in next year's elections. The parties involved are UPND, FDD, Patriotic Front, Party for Unity, Development and Democracy (PUDD) and Heritage Party. According to an executive summary of the proposal for a coalition obtained by The Post, the parties will fall under the umbrella body called Zambia Rainbow Coalition (ZRC). The mission for ZRC is to achieve an electoral pact that will enable participating opposition parties to field one presidential candidate in next year's elections, while the objective is to promote and converge people's voices through quality elections where the wishes and views of the people are not spread among many choices of candidates. "Registered political parties will continue to exist in their current form and structure with their management committees and party structures intact," the executive summary states in part. "The ZRC will help parties agree and separately participate in parliamentary and ward elections in places of their political strength." The summary further stated that a co-ordinating committee and secretariat unit would be established to bring together opposition parties to agree and participate in the mission of the ZRC. The commission that would establish the secretariat is further expected to prepare The People's Conference. It is proposed that the commission be constituted by three commissioners, being eminent and non-partisan persons to run the secretariat. This commission will prepare a legitimate electoral college and convene The People's Conference with the sole purpose of electing a single presidential candidate. "Each eligible presidential candidate or participating party will be allowed to bring 500 delegates to form the electoral college," the executive summary further states. "The winner will consequently lead the Zambia Rainbow Coalition and enjoy support from his/her colleagues and enable the ZRC field one presidential candidate. Participating political parties will use their independent platforms to campaign for this candidate." When reached for comment, Patriotic Front president Michael Sata yesterday said his party had advanced this proposal because it could be the only answer for their political relationship with other parties. "An outright merger is not possible because of selfishness. So an alliance of this kind is better because some parties fear to go into extinction if they merge. That is why we would rather each party maintain its identity and structures. But to succeed, we leaders have also to sensitise ourselves as opposed to only sensitising Zambians." But FDD president Edith Nawakwi said she is yet to be briefed about the development while UPND spokesperson Patrick Chisanga said it seemed matters were moving faster than he was aware. However, Chisanga said as UPND, they have always been concerned by calls for the opposition to unite. He said if such calls remained in only the media, nothing would be achieved. "So we have been part of the process to initiate fresh dialogue to come up with a united front after the last attempt collapsed," Chisanga said. "But at the moment it is too early to state what has been settled for, whether it is an alliance or a merger. What is true is that a seed has been planted and discussions have started but I am not aware that there is ZRC. What I only know is that the concept of working together has been responded to." The executive summary stated the background to ZRC was that Zambians were calling for order in the electoral process so that leaders could tackle greater and national problems of poverty, diseases and unemployment. Relevant Links Southern Africa Zambia "Many Zambians find hope and inspiration in today's major opposition parties but mourn the division existing," the summary stated. "Sadly, these hopes and wishes are dashed by the current fragmentation in the electoral process caused by numerous competing parties for the same voice and vote. Zambians believe in Multipatyism only to the extent that the process should foster development and freedom. "It is this realisation that has brought about the quest to bring together major opposition political parties in Zambia to a common purpose of interest. This is also to promote unity in diversity among the opposition political parties." The question should be : how can the common Zambia Citizen determine ..rather know as a matter of fact that in coming President ( after President Levy Mwanawasa lives office...we hear the man wants to resign for having failed Zambia) will do any better that is the questions Matek Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Small Business - Try our
[Ugnet] Zambian Politics: an Interview with KK My life after the presidency
My life after the presidency By Andrew Mwenda In the continuation of the series, Kenneth Kaunda talks to Andrew M. Mwenda about his successes and failures during his reign as president I want to admit that as a human being, I must have made some mistakes. I know I am an ordinary human being subject to doing good and bad. There is no way I can stand on a rooftop like this one of yours and say, I did no wrong. That would not be correct at all. I made so many mistakes as a human being. I may not remember all of them. I am sure there are quite many but its human to error. However, I also know that Africas tragedy is not just a product of mistakes by Africa leaders alone. There is a lot of harm from the powerful countries and from institutions like the IMF and World Bank. They tend to contribute to the poverty and misery we see in Africa today. Some people think I stayed in power for so long. To be honest, I am not yet sure whether that was a mistake on my part or not. Some think I should have left power early enough so that I would not suffer electoral defeat, just like my friend and brother Julius Nyerere in Tanzania did. I DID MY PART: Kaunda says his biggest achievement was uniting Zambia (Monitor photo) I am not yet certain of my own feelings. I think it is not the time someone stays in office that should be the issue but what a leader does when he is in such a position of responsibility. It was a Friday when they announced that Movement for Multi Party Democracy led by Frederick Chiluba had won the elections. I had my doubts but it didnt matter. I telephoned Mr Chiluba the president elect and said, Congratulations. I am told you have won. I am waiting for you tomorrow to come and take over. He said thank you. The following day, Chiluba came with his whole cabinet, and the Vice President now President Levy Mwanawasa. They were three hours late. I said, Young people, I am taking president elect Chiluba to my office to brief him on how I run the state machinery. Please wait here. I took him to my office. I briefed him verbally and in writing. After that, I showed him a secret entrance to tunnels, security tunnels leading to an underground bunker. I told him that if he should ever get into trouble, there is a young man here who will come and declare avacadabra and the tunnels will open. And get 29 people you trust and yourself make the thirtieth. There are 30 mattresses, blankets and everything ready. There is a powerful broadcasting machine, more powerful than the state radio, so you can broadcast to the people of Zambia. You can also call for support from somewhere outside. They will come and help you. I took him around and finally told him I am a patriot, I am a Pan-Africanist. If at anytime you should need my assistance dont hesitate to call, I will come and assist. Chilubas response was a lesson to me about the role of individuals in the destiny of nations, especially so in Africa. Because later on, he called journalists and claimed that I had an underground station where I was locking up opposition leaders, torturing and killing people. The Post newspaper bought his lie. But some of the press said it looked like a palace and not a dungeon where they were killing people. Tragedies like this cannot happen when you have got correct leadership. In Africa there must be clean thinking. We should not make politics a source of enmity. Politics must be a service to the people of God, Gods children. Leaders must look at politics as a service to the nations. If you look at politics as something you must benefit from and power as something you must hold at all costs, then the nation is dead. Later Chiluba would raid my house claiming I had stolen books from State House. And how many books did he recover? Only four. Kaunda, the father of the Zambian nation stealing four textbooks! My God! I was never corrupt as a leader. Up to the day I left office, I did not even have a house in which to live in Lusaka. I had a house in my home village, which is far away from here. So when I left office, I had no house, or where to go. We had built rest houses here for the mines. I occupied the smallest house belonging to Lwasha mine with my wife. But within 10 days, President Chiluba asked me to vacate the house. The constitution provided that a retired president should have a house, a pension and some support staff. But they abolished all those. Fortunately, a young man who was working with me had a spare house in Lusaka and he heard that I was being chased from the government house, because these mines were under government control. He said Old man please, I have got a house here, you can stay there for two years without paying anything, you have done so much. So he lent it to us for two years, my wife, and me and thats how we survived otherwise we would have been completely destroyed. After two years, another young man who was a businessman came to see me and said he had a
[Ugnet] Zambian Politics: I have been falsely accused says Former President Fredrick Chiluba
I have been falsely accused By Andrew Mwenda In this part Frederick Chiluba tells Andrew Mwenda about his trials and tribulations in the Zambian court. President Mwanawasa went to parliament and prayed that there had been plundering of national resources and this was attributed to me as former president of the country. Mwanawasa is my brother. He used the word plunder. It was attributed to my government and me. Because I was a plunderer, he asked parliament to lift my immunity from prosecution as a former head of state. Remember that our constitution gives immunity to a former head of state, but also adds that the immunity can be lifted if there is glaring evidence of gross abuse of office. Article 43 (2) of our constitution says nothing should ever happen to a president for the acts he commits or fails to commit during his tenure of office. Mwanawasa set the grounds for lifting my immunity, essentially about seven of them. The first was that the purchase price or the money for the sale of the Luanshya mine, US$ 35million had gone untraced, and the US$ 12 million which was brought in as working capital had also disappeared, meaning that they were both misused or stolen. The second charge was that I had stolen 67 oil tankers whose values were not established. It could have been $100 million or something, but 67 oil tankers were lost and they remained unaccounted for. IT IS RIDICULOUS: Frederick Chiluba and Andrew Mwenda during the interview. Chiluba says none of the witnesses brought to court to support the case said he was involved in the scams(Monitor photo). The third charge was the alleged fraudulent purchase of military hardware from Mr. Katebekatoto, a Congolese businessman amounting to $20.5 million. The fourth charge concerned the transfer and conversion of state assets, which were under the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development, for private use, meaning that I was stealing them from government for my personal use. This charge claimed that I had registered these assets into my names or something close to that. These assets were said to be in London and Dar-Es-salaam. I know what those assets were in England: they were the sale or the remains of the sale of ZTCM assets especially buildings. Now there were some buildings where the intelligence were operating and they had put some of those rooms up for rent and they were earning money which was going to government through the Ministry of Finance. And so they said this money had been stolen when the proceeds of these assets were going to the Ministry of Finance.The fifth charge was misuse of intelligence money. The president prayed parliament to enable him to prosecute me and he could only do that if parliament lifted my immunity. There were two other charges whose details I cannot recollect now, making a total of seven. On this basis, parliament lifted my immunity with the euphoria that they had caught a thief. Sadly, and disappointingly, the state did not have even the prima facie evidence on all these cases, and therefore none of them appeared on the indictment list when I first appeared in court to take my plea. My understanding is that even when we were going to court, they must have discovered that no such plundering ever took place. Thus, in court, all these seven charges against me were withdrawn. It is important to remember that when the hullabaloo about my case started, the government through the media claimed that I had stolen US $2 billion from the treasury. This claim was ridiculous although some people bought it. Zambias annual budget is just above US$ 500 million. To steal US$ 2 billion in 10 years would mean not paying salaries or doing anything at all. Now in court, they withdrew the seven charges on which parliament relied to lift my immunity.If there was due process of the law, certainly my immunity would automatically have been reinstated since the seven grounds on which the parliament lifted it were all withdrawn by the government. Unfortunately, that has not been the case. Instead, the government brought forth fresh charges in which I was now accused of theft and abuse of office, causing a loss amounting to 19 billion Kwacha, which is the equivalent of US$ 4 million. They brought another charge of 168 counts, a second set of counts.The second set was brought in dollars accusing me of plundering both in Kwachas and dollars at separate intervals. That is what they said. You cant help but laugh at the way they brought the second charge and then said US$ 40 million was missing. This latter charge arose from an intelligence account called Zamtrop. The total number of charges in this second set of charges was 204 counts. And we were carrying these charges together at some point, of course appearing on different dates for each one of the two sets of indictment. HARRASSED: Frederick Chiluba says he is walking a tight rope because while some people believe him, others believe the State (Monitor
