INCONSIDERATE, KNOW-IT ALL PF CAN’T BOUNCE BACK
The Candidates’ Comment
One day, prior to the 2021 General Elections, then Patriotic Front (PF) media director Sunday Chanda had a meeting with The Candidates’ editor. This was before this platform was birthed. The meeting was held at Chrisma Hotel and, the agenda was ‘how can you help boost the PF digital media prominence?’
There was awareness within PF that, despite that Edgar Lungu and PF had done so many things from 2011 to 2021, there was little publicity of the benefits of those projects and many people did not really appreciate the works. At the time, the opposition was antagonistically branding all government projects as corrupt and they were quiet effective in their offensive message to the people.
We knew the problem.
We told Sunday that, the first problem was that almost all message bearers of government projects – including him as PF media director and his colleagues in the party – had been hated by the people so much that, whatever they said was either believed halfway or was not taken as gospel truth. Secondly, we told Sunday that the biggest mistake that many political parties and their leaders make is beginning to display their achievements in government, in the election year. Often times than not, people take such messages as part of campaigning and therefore, do not trust such. We made suggestions which we can’t share now because, that would be free consultancy even to the current government, as they face a similar problem today.
When we told Sunday these problems, these truths, he immediately developed hatred for us. Until today, Sunday hates the Editor/Chief Admin of The Candidates. This is because Sunday was told the truth.
The Candidates editor told Sunday what many people in PF knew was the problem but feared to say. We all remember that this Sunday had nothing worth talking about, about the achievements of his party but, focused much on discussing the personality of Hakainde Hichilema – then, in opposition. It is Sunday who told Zambians in his long articles, pregnant with googleable big words, that Hakainde was a freemason. It is Sunday who told Zambians that Hakainde was an imperialist agent, that he privatized mines and so on and so forth. Sunday and his PF media, including the entire government communication system focused on the wrong message. All they did was slander, malign Hakainde. Consequently, they missed an opportunity to highlight their achievements and give people more reasons to retain them in power. On the other hand, the opposition – in this case the UPND as the main opposition –spent so much time and resources lacing all the projects PF did as corrupt. They spent a significant amount of time and resources telling people what Hakainde will offer once given a chance to rule Zambia. And they repeated this every day, in a coordinated manner on countless digital platforms they had access to and those they created themselves.
We believe, and we know we are not far from the truth that, PF lost the 2021 elections because they were arrogant, know-it all.
Again, we once sat down with Chris Zumani Zimba, Andrew Chellah and Sukwana Lukangaba, all former State House officials, just few months before the election and we told them, that they would lose the 2021 elections having looked at the numbers of the new registered voters. Our view was that, the new voters were millennials and the PF had no effective media strategy that found expression in the environment were these new voters belonged. We devised a plan for them, on how they could overturn their misfortunes, in waiting. But when we told them this truth, these characters started avoiding us and here we are, they lost the election terribly and now live in constant fear of arrests, persecution and prosecution.
We also remember that, The Candidates constantly ran an online opinion poll not only on PF in whole but even on individuals MPs. Whenever we published these results, many characters – bootlickers – in PF insulted us. Everyone knows, for example, how a very well-known PF cadre Chanda John Chimba threatened to report us to Police, in his head, because we were fighting government. This was simply because we told PF and its members the truth.
Again, we remember running an opinion poll and results showed that Hakainde would beat Edgar in that election. We did not publish the results, but shared them with Emmanuel Mwamba.
The then arrogant, know-it all PF is still the same. These elements, these characters have not changed even now. They are still the same people they were when they held power. These elements do not listen to advice and counsel. They only listen to their demons. Perhaps, it is the reason why this party is dying. It has many wrong chaps, many ignorant, yet egocentric, foolish and know-it all elements, characters in different layers of their leadership.