Fred M’membe’s Twisted Agenda

REPOST (2018)

I WRITE WHAT I LIKE

Published 3rd April 2018

Fred M’membe’s Twisted Agenda

By Daimone Siulapwa

M’membe, has single-handedly and selfishly managed to sink most of his former employees into poverty as he did not hesitate to brutally repress people who did not agree with him or when they protested. like all communists, M’membe and his Socialist Party want to eliminate competition completely – they want to control everything and reduce to its minimum expression people’s ability to question how they acquired wealth which they themselves are flaunting around. Doesn’t M’membe own a Hammers Other Luxuries?

When Zambia’s erstwhile media magnate, Fred M’membe started The Post newspaper in 1990, he emphasised that he was not in the business to make money, but rather he had started it with a revolutionary agenda and with a revolutionary cause and goal.

And according to M’membe, a self-proclaimed socialist, he was just but a part of revolutionaries whose goal was to contribute to the revolutionary agenda in an intelligent and creative way that would enable the newspaper to continue in existence, and give the biggest impact.

While at the helm of The Post Newspaper, M’membe on several fora said that he, together with his ‘comrades’ at the ‘independent’ newspaper, were doing so as internationalists and that was the reason why his newspaper was in Cuba – a country whose democratic credentials leave much to be desired.

According to M’membe, his revolutionary agenda was that of socialism and that is probably why he decided to maintain The Post Newspaper’s Cuban bureau even in the midst of financial hurdles which the newspaper had been facing since the opening of the office in the somewhat isolated country.

And in his rhetoric, M’membe portrayed himself as a communist/socialist, yet it is easy to determine that he is far from being one as his deeds show that he espouses capitalist norms and tendencies which are so difficult to hide.

Evidently, M’membe’s understanding of socialism is that leadership should take a totalitarian form and that explains why he and his Socialist Party are courting the Cuban government through its Zambian envoy Nelson Pages Vilas who has now been recommended for expulsion.

It is rather ironical that the Cuban Ambassador of all people chose to publicly side with M’membe apparently because the latter espouses socialist ideologies just like Cuba yet the envoy himself knows that in Cuba, the opposition is begrudged and it is as good as absent.

Cuba is not a model country to look up to in terms of politics and it is only those who believe in the cruel repression in that country and despots like M’membe and Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro who can happily claim that socialism is the best ideology countries should embrace.

Socialism is failing all over the world and the Zambian electorate will in 2021 show the global community that they no longer have faith in any variant of socialism, the “light” or moderate form that in many countries has been called Social Democracy or Democratic Socialism.

It is problematic to even trust if M’membe and his colleagues believe in the ideologies they are trying to make Zambians understand because they are on one hand propagating socialists’ ideas yet in the real sense they are all outright capitalists.

M’membe and his party colleagues are propagating the rejection of capitalism and the free market economy that gives everyone the right to produce and consume according to their needs when in essence they themselves have amassed wealth and property using the same means.

M’membe, just like his South African protégé Blade Zimande of the South African Communist Party, lives in an upmarket mansion, drives expensive vehicles unlike what is expected of a socialist and a pro-poor person he claims to be.

In fact, like communists, M’membe and his Socialist Party want to eliminate competition completely – they want to control everything and reduce to its minimum expression people’s ability to question how they acquired wealth which they are flaunting around.

In essence, modern Zambian socialists like M’membe and his former colleague Rainbow Party’s Wynter Kabimba have shown that they have the same totalitarian calling as their Venezuelan, Soviet and Chinese predecessors as well as their Cuban counterparts.

The two lawyers have also shown that their alleged democracy is a farce. As for M’membe, he has single-handedly and selfishly managed to sink most of his former employees into poverty as he did not hesitate to brutally repress people who did not agree with him or when they protested.

At The Post, it is M’membe’s dictatorship traits and constant aggression toward his employees that created a situation where the newspaper was incapable of sustaining itself because it was mismanaged to the core by mainly him without anyone questioning.

To reaffirm that M’membe is  indeed a capitalist, one has to revisit his conduct when he was at the helm of The Post newspaper where he controlled almost all aspects of the media entity to the exclusion of even his board members.

Board members, such as former Post Newspapers Board Chairperson Morris Attala, where nothing but figureheads, so was his management team. At The Post, anyone with nonconforming views was given the boot and M’membe can be challenged on this score.

No worker at The Post was allowed to belong to a trade union as set out in Zambia’s labour laws and anyone who attempted to form one was best described as a mole and those who dared to exercise their right to belong to a labour movement were fired on flimsy grounds.

It is such despotic tendencies, levels of intolerance and a sheer lack of transparency that are causing those who know M’membe well to shudder at the thought of the former Post Newspaper Editor-in-Chief and Managing Director becoming Zambia’s Republican President.

M’membe has always lived through repression and reprisals haranguing everyone who seemed to be hindering his interests which until his announcement that he had joined politics were thought to be hinged on his business interests.

It was always M’membe’s intention to make the party in government to toll his line of thought in the hope that this would make the ruling elite to offer him business favours in return for positive coverage and loyalty from his once revered newspaper – The Post.

Using The Post, M’membe directed the way of governing the country on the perception that only his thoughts were right, and a shift from his plan attracted scathing attacks from the newspaper – attacks which former Rupiah Banda can candidly attest to.

At the time, it appeared that all this was motivated by business interests and his insatiable desire to acquire wealth just like capitalists do but now it has become more apparent that M’membe’s desire was to be in State House himself.

Inarguably, it is M’membe’s constitutional right to seek the country’s utmost office yet it difficult to fathom why he decided to make known his political ambitions at this late hour when his popularity has waned.

*M’membe’s reputation started fading as soon as Zambians realised that he was propagating his selfish interest whenever he supported political parties that seemed to support his business interests.*

When Levy Mwanawasa sought to become President backed by Frederick Chiluba, M’membe launched an incessant campaign aimed at disparaging the MMD’s 2001 presidential candidate and called the former vice president all sorts of names.

But in a sudden U-turn, M’membe changed course when the Mwanawasa regime turned against Chiluba and when the MMD started giving him and his friends like Mutembo Nchito concessional loans through the Development Bank of Zambia (DBZ).

*With massive advertising from government, and the free-flow of discounted loans, and their non-payment of taxes, The Post soon became an admirable business entity and while his relationship with the ruling MMD was at the apex, M’membe expanded his enterprise like wild fire setting up an airline in the process.*

But with Mwanawasa’s death, the political landscape changed and so did M’membe’s attitude towards the MMD as he hastily switched his allegiance to the Michael Sata-led PF a party which he had all the while said was full of redundant thugs.

M’membe supported Sata, a person he had previously called a dictator, just because his preferred candidate Ngandu Magande failed to beat Rupiah to ascend to the Presidency and he reaped the benefits when Sata became President in 2011 acquiring several government contracts using his trucking company – Post Courier.

But as fate would have it, former President Sata only ruled for barely three and M’membe was back on the drawing board pondering on what his next manoeuvre would be before ultimately settling for fellow socialist Kabimba who had fallen out of favour with Sata.

Now it is apparent that President Edgar Lungu is M’membe’s foremost adversary as it is during the current Head of State’s reign that his once-favoured newspaper was callously liquidated despite several legal efforts to challenge the move.

It remains to be seen whether M’membe will make any meaningful impact on Zambia’s political landscape and whether he will be able to galvanize enough support to be able to win as President in 2021 using hi so-called socialist ideologies.

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*In my next article, I will analysis why many politicians and citizens are scared to imagine the possibility of the M’membe Presidency. Why has there been such a huge uproar on M’membe Joining Politics from all sector of our society? Should this indicate M’membe’s threat?*
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*Daimone Siulapwa is the founder and Editor-In-Chief of the Voice Newspaper in Zambia. For comments, please email dsgbarron@gmail.com.*