LUSAKA lawyer John Sangwa says the only difference between PF and UPND is the fact that one is led by Edgar Lungu and the other by Hakainde Hichilema.
Speaking on Radio Phoenix’s Let the People Talk programme yesterday, Sangwa said only the Socialist Party has a clearly set agenda which distinguishes itself from the others.
Sangwa, who took time condemning the money being thrown around in campaigns, said anybody who throws money at voters was actually ignorant of the dynamics of politics.
He said he had faith in the Zambian voter.
“If the Zambian voter was stupid, RB [Rupiah Banda] would have won in 2011. RB had more money than Michael Sata but in the end the people collected the money and still voted the way they voted. Even in this election, I believe people are wise enough, you cannot buy votes, first of all it’s an investment whose returns cannot be guaranteed,” he said.
Sangwa said giving handouts to voters was insulting the people.
He said Dr Kenneth Kaunda ruled for 27 years because he delivered and was only kicked out when his system collapsed.
He said people do not care who was in power as long as their lives were okay.
“But when their lives are affected, they begin to ask, who is responsible for this mess? And then they find that it is you who was voted in power who has messed up and they will throw you out,” he said.
He said there was no need to bribe voters by anyone who had delivered.
Sangwa said in 1964, there were two parties that emerged – the Africa National Congress and UNIP.
He said UNIP had the majority as a result they elected a prime minister in 1964 and then the prime minister became President after independence.
He said the assumption was that at some point the ANC, which was the second largest political party, would be able to do a better job and be able to become the ruling party.
“But that is not what we saw. What we saw was a systematic destruction of the ANC by UNIP, which resulted in the introduction of one party rule in 1972. And that wiped out the ANC. So there’s that failure to understand the necessity of an opposition party,” he said.
He noted after 27 years of UNIP’s rule, Zambia that was one of the richest countries in Africa, was crippled, became the worst indebted and least developed country in Africa by 1991.
“Now why? Because when you are a one-party ruler, there’s nobody to challenge you. You are able to put up crazy policies and everything else which were responsible for damaging the economy and everything else,” he said.
He said after 1991, the nation never had a conversation around what multiparty politics were in terms of how they were supposed to operate.
“First of all, you have problems within the political party itself. This is a problem that is still there today. That’s why you find this nonsense of somebody is today PF, the following day he’s UPND. Somebody who is UPND tomorrow he’s PF,” he said. “Now that’s failure to understand… When you make a decision to be PF or to be UPND, there’s something about PF that you like and there’s something about UPND that you like – that will make you to say okay, I will go to PF as opposed to UPND. Or I will go to UPND as opposed to PF. That should be the thinking of the membership. But unfortunately, these two political parties have not even articulated their differences because I can ask you or maybe if you ask me, what does the PF believe in and what does the UPND believe in? I would have a problem in answering that question. The only difference would be the fact that, well UPND is led by HH and the other one is led by ECL. For me that will be the only major difference. What about policies? What kind of values do they have? What kind of principles do these parties have? They haven’t been articulated. And that’s why it is so easy for somebody to jump from one political party to another political party because there’s no clear-cut principles and values. Maybe the only distinction is my friend’s political party, which is the Socialist Party, which has a clearly set agenda which distinguishes itself from the others. It has given its own identity. They have articulated their position to say, fine we are Socialist Party and this is what we stand for.”
Sangwa said for one to go socialist, it means they must buy into the values of the Socialist Party.
“Now when you look at the UPND, look at the PF, what is it that distinguishes them in terms of policies? You can say, okay we will create jobs, we will create this, but how are you going to do that?” Sangwa asked. “You see, so there’s a problem and that’s why it is so easy for one person to jump from one political party to another. The other problem also is that after 1991, we did not have that conversation that, fine we are now in a multiparty system, what does it mean? And you saw that in 1991, there was obviously a landslide victory by MMD.”
And Sangwa emphasised on the credibility of whatever the Electoral Commission of Zambia does.
He noted that the old register that had about six million registered voters had been discarded and about seven million were captured in a new register.
He said assuming the figures were correct, what was currently in place was a better register.
“But it is not so much about numbers, it is about ECZ doing a bit more to allay some concerns of the people. You can do a very good job but if you don’t go out to explain what you are doing, even if what you are doing is good, it will be doubted, it will not be credible and if it is not credible, everything that you do will be in vain,” he said.
Sangwa said it was important to understand that the ECZ was running the electoral process for the people and not for a political party.
He said it was important for ECZ to take measures to address genuine concerns by political players.
He said the participants in the political process must have faith in what ECZ was doing.
“ECZ can achieve that by promptly responding to their concerns so that there is transparency,” he said.
Sangwa said he had heard that there were requests for the voters’ register to be audited but the ECZ had refused.
“That is something that requires urgent attention because that goes to the credibility of the entire exercise. What is the purpose of an audit? It’s really to verify what you have done by an independent body, a body outside ECZ,” he said.
He said he could not see any reason why there should be resistance to have the voters’ register audited.
Sangwa said there were allegations that in opposition strongholds fewer people were registered compared to the PF’s strongholds.
“Somebody has to explain that because the numbers that are coming out are quite significant and various theories have been cooked up,” he said.
He said since the process was being conducted by ECZ and not any political party, it was the job of the electoral body to ensure more people are registered.
“So we need a more logical explanation to account for that huge variance in the numbers, it’s not something that can just be explained away,” he said.
Sangwa said the audit would explain why there was a variation in the numbers of voters.
“The point is this: it is the job of ECZ to explain these things because we are talking numbers, we are not talking feelings because you can’t measure feelings,” he said. “The country was subjected to the same social and economic conditions. If you say may be there was war there, or there was peace here, that’s why there was more registration of voters. We can understand that but we were faced with the same conditions throughout the country, then how do you explain these variations in the number of registered voters? We need a credible explanation.”
Sangwa also expressed worry over pronouncements by ruling party politicians that they would win the August elections by landslide margins.
“And I am saying, wait a minute, where are you getting your numbers from? Because winning an election with 500,000 votes is a huge win. First of all, who has done an exercise on the ground on the views of the people to show that this is indeed feasible, it is possible? When you look at the data on the ground, that is impossible, in my own opinion,” Sangwa said. “There is no way a ruling party can claim to have a landslide win…but let’s assume that statement is correct; first of all, what is the basis of that information? Now the data on the ground does not support that. In fact, in recent times, no president has ever won an election with that kind of margin anyway.”
Sangwa said when one looks at the 2016 election, the winning candidate had to reach the 50 per cent mark.
He said President Lungu won with 50.3 per cent, which translated to about 13 per cent.
He said President Lungu’s win in 2016 as reflected on the ECZ website was with about 29,000 votes.
Sangwa explained that the difference in votes between President Lungu and his main rival was 100,000.
“Now tell me, how are you going to get 500,000 votes? How are you going to replicate that five times, how? How?” he asked.
Sangwa said if an election is free and fair, there was no way anyone could predict that they would have a landslide victory.
He wondered how it was “humanly possible” that the PF would get five times more votes than they obtained in 2016.
“For me these are kinds of statements that I would consider to be irresponsible to make because then what you are doing is that you…nobody can say that because you don’t know how I am going to vote, okay, unless you have some power of divination where you are going to predict the future. That’s different, but if you don’t, you can’t even make such a prediction,” Sangwa said. “But if you arrogantly state something like that then people are saying, why are you saying that? Why don’t you say you are going to win by 200,000 votes? At least, why 500,000 votes? Those are statements that are likely to undermine and make the work of the ECZ very difficult.”
Sangwa said a vote in Zambia was secret and nobody knew who the others would vote for.
He said anything could happen between now and August when the elections would be held so it was irresponsible for anybody to make such pronouncements.