HARRY KALABA: IF VISIONLESS WAS A PERSON

Scoop Editorial: July 24, 2022

A FEW months ago, when a leadership wrangle erupted in the Democratic Party (DP) and reached its crescendo of madness, we elected to remain quiet for the time being.

We elected to do so because that is our tradition. We don’t rush to make conclusions based on hearsay. We investigate issues and later take a stand based on facts and not rumours.

After a perusal of court and party documents which were a borne of contention, we realised that Harry had no case in court. We realised that his opponents stood on firm ground and no matter what Harry and his tandem of praise singers would do, they would lose the case.

We did not do an editorial to that effect because we did not want to be prejudicial and even now, we are careful not to wad into the legal web because we know the case is still very much active in court despite Harry deciding to “resign” from the party.

To those who do not understand the genesis of this saga clearly, Harry was a staunch Patriotic Front (PF) cadre who abused opponents each time they brought characters like Edgar Lungu to question. Harry defended Edgar fervently like a blind disciple. When Edgar and his minions were maiming Zambians who did not agree with PF tyranny, Harry was among those vuvuzelas who defended Edgar to the last drop of their blood.

Harry was rewarded handsomely for his cheerleading role in PF with a ministerial job, as Minister of Foreign Affairs until, like Satan the Devil, he decided to become the most high and because it was not possible at that time to use the PF ladder to rise to the top when the monster in Edgar who Harry and his friends created still had unfinished business, Kalaba decided to resign and form his party. But there was a problem.

The problem was that it was almost impossible for Harry to register DP with him as the party president. With Edgar as Republican President and the shroud Stephen Kampyongo as Minister of Home Affairs, there was no way Harry was going to be allowed to register his political party and to save himself from this headache, Harry decided to use other people as office bearers to DP. That was Edgar for you. Felix Mutati suffered the same fate for a long time as efforts to register the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) yielded nothing. The tag team of political insolence and hooliganism consisting of Edgar and Stephen simply made it impossible for him to register his party.

At some point Felix was even tempted to buy off one of the smaller political parties and then go for a convention and change officer bearers, all because of the PF tyranny. It was much later that he succeeded and this is the same predicament the unwise Harry found himself in.

So, when the other team said Harry has never been in any party position in the DP, they were very correct because his name was nowhere near the party documents at the Registrar of Societies and this is where he lost it. Harry was carried away by party support and forgot that Nebuchadnezzar was out grazing with the cattle next door and that it was just a matter of time before a volcano would erupt from among the very people who he confided in, as they would get fed up with his bulldozing antics. Harry forgot to normalise things once the party was registered by changing office bearers to include himself in the hierarchy.

He underestimated the power of those he was fronting. He thought everyone would remain loyal to him in the midst of his arrogance and know-it-all attitude to party members and it was just one move which left him beaten to the ground like a kalukuluku.

Harry was not fought by his members because he is not in the party structures. He was fought because he ran the party like his own poultry farm. He thought all members were docile enough to obey his instructions without question. He missed the point and found himself in the sewer, teaming with filthy and to hear him ranting about how he was allegedly frustrated by the Judiciary, shows that even through this ordeal, he has not repented. It is clear that Harry is not sincere with himself.

Harry had no ground for winning the court case. It is not because the judiciary frustrated him by not disposing off the case early enough. Harry had no case to contend in the first place and all that nonsense he said today was just a facesaver. Harry should be the last person to pour his anger on the Judiciary. His problem did not start and will never end with the Judicary. Harry just doesn’t have the political intelligence. Like a teen who has just known how to propose girls, he is moved by excitement and this is where he gets its wrong.

Instead of blaming the judiciary or Government over his misfortune, he should be cursing himself for helping this country create a monster in Edgar which has come to devour him. Had the PF not given us a ruthless leader who never believed in democracy, Harry would not have been party-less today because he would have registered the DP with his name among the party leaders.

What Harry lacks is foresight. He never saw his current predicament coming. He never envisioned that the people he had gathered to register a political party to wrestle power from the PF would deal with him ruthlessly. Harry has not resigned from DP. He had no position to resign from. He was just a consultant who stood as presidential candidate on the party ticket. Save for the ballot paper, Harry’s name was nowhere near the party leadership.

But this is what happens when you overrate yourself yet you are just a notch above a chicken brain. This is what happens when you start thinking like a compound slay queen who agrees to sleep with a prophet in exchange for blessings. If you are a political party leader who still believes a prophet can make you Republican President, then you must think again.

Harry has reached the dead end. He must now start all over again because when people advised him, he thought they were stupid. No matter how long a log can float on water, it can never be a crocodile. Kalaba may have been at the helm of the formation of the DP and could have even forked out his own pocket money to help establish it, but that on its own does not qualify him to be the party leader and he must not attack innocent people for his own failure.

Let him blame himself and we hope as he registers another party, he will do the needful this time other than basking in the confidence of misguided arrogance.

No one frustrated Harry. He is just an epitome of being visionless, chapwa!

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