DO NUMBERS LIE?
By Chanoda Ngwira
I have been reflecting on the just ended events of Women and Youth Day.. To me, what caught my attention was the issue of numbers from different political parties representing their clubs or parties.
It is without doubt that the Patriotic Front out numbered all political parties in terms of participation on both days. The numbers were basically huge countrywide on average and generally.
What do these numbers entail? To me, this tells me that these are actuall numbers of members of these political parties and obviously the measure of any grouping is based on numbers. And if we critically look at the participation of youths and women from different political parties, we shall discover that indeed PF did well in terms of organisation of their members beating all political parties.. Mind you, those were holidays and so, we can not say people went for work and yes, those were not civil servants because in Zambia civil servants are non partisan.
However, one interesting thing we ought to understand is that it is not every member of a particular party that votes for their party, take note of that. And since it is not every member of a party that votes for their party, the difference between membership to the party and votes cast is very obvious, meaning one party can be voted for by a huge number which includes their members, non aligned and those from other political parties.
Due to this fact regards voting, it is possible to have a smaller party in terms of numbers of members to beat a biggest political party hence bringing about the minority to rule. This is a fact no matter the lense one uses to look at things.
Trust me, not all the 1.8 who voted for PF were actually members of it, same as the 2.8 and these numbers could have been affected negatively or positively as we speak now after a year plus of the UPND’s rule. So yes, the 2.8 are not the same and obviously the 1.8 are not.
Based on the participation of members of UPND and PF on youth and Women’s day respectively, allow me to conclude that PF remains the biggest party in Zambia by numbers though obviously they lost. This is a notorious fact because trust me, most of those who participated from different political parties in various Districts are actually a reflection of who has what numbers in which area since participation was on voluntary basis without due influence from anywhere..
*PF REMAINS THE BIGGEST PARTY IN ZAMBIA!
