By Kellys Kaunda
POLITICAL MANIPULATION IS TRICKY BUSINESS – A HISTORICAL OVERVIEW
Since the dawn of organized systems of government, leaders have always sought to manipulate two centers of power – systems of governance and the people.
The degrees of success or failure have varied from leader to leader, regime to regime, and place to place.
They all do this even when they claim the job is both difficult and a mere public service!
In Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), colonial authorities used laws to discriminate against indigenous populations.
They used the police to clamp down on the activities of freedom fighters.
They used courts to send them to jail. Using divide and rule, they set one group of indigenous populations against another.
This went on for decades but inevitably, the manipulation was broken as the indigenous population bandied together and broke free.
The lesson was clear: manipulation may work but for a season.
The first indigenous government of the United National Independence Party, UNIP and first President, Kenneth Kaunda, applied the manipulation of both systems of governance and the public.
For 27yrs, it worked thoroughly, subjugating both the people and state institutions to the will of political leaders.
In a repeat of pre-independence days, the public rallied around prodemocracy forces and broke the manipulative hand of Kaunda and UNIP.
The lesson was yet again repeated – manipulation is not sustainable!
Both the Movement for Multiparty Democracy, MMD, and the Patriotic Front, PF, have something in common – caders and political violence in addition to the manipulation of state institutions.
In both regimes, a cader was king. Who remembers the infamous Nakawala who even slapped a Cabinet Minister at the airport in full view of other ministers and the police when he couldn’t, to her satisfaction, answer the question of whether he supported the third term or not?
And those were days when the son of the President, Castrol Chiluba, could walk into any drinking place and harass whoever he so wished.
I saw how he walked to the table of friends of mine at Holgans at Mandahill and began to flirt openly with one of the girls at the table.
For what felt like eternity, there was tension and silence as my friends watched helplessly a manipulated political system at work.
Only after Castrol had satisfied himself and walked away did normalcy return to the place.
During the reign of PF and Edgar Lungu, no need to remind anyone because we are all witnesses to the brutalization of the opposition and the manipulation of the police in favor of the ruling party.
The victims, that include President Hakainde Hichilema, are now in charge of government.
Not to be outdone, the recent victims have turned similar instruments of manipulation against their previous tormentors and others who they think threaten their stay in power.
While their caders have largely been tamed, they have gone full throttle in the abuse of state institutions to thoroughly decapitate and debilitate their political opponents.
They don’t care about being noticed that they are violating this or that law. Their word though not verbalized is: you can go to hell! Talk, and you will see what we’ll do to you. In fact, you are so intimidated, you will do nothing!
Like gladiators in ancient Rome, the current leaders are literally prancing around the stage looking around to see if there’s anyone with the courage to challenge the great leader – Hakainde Hichilema and the Grand Old Party, GOP, of Zambia – the UPND.
However, almost like classic prophesy, UPND shall surely exit the stage because manipulation is never a sustainable policy to rule by.
Yes, UPND and Hichilema have undoubtedly manipulated systems of governance to their own advantage.
But, it is for a season. You can fool some of the people, some of the times, but you can’t fool all the people, all the time.
As long as there’s an opposition willing to challenge the status quo, there will always be a people willing to break the ugly hand of manipulation.
And that day is coming. And, it’s never a pleasant one for manipulators.