STRATEGIC ALLIANCES SHOULD BE ENGAGED WITH A LOT OF CARE AND PRUDENCE – SP PRESIDENT
….often, they are characterised by evasions, illusions, & opportunism
Lusaka… Sunday September 15, 2024
Socialist Party President Dr Fred M’membe says strategic and permanent alliances should be engaged with a lot of care and prudence.
Dr. M’membe notes that often, they are characterised by evasions, illusions, and opportunism.
He stated that no true alliance can be built on the shifting sands of evasions, illusions, and opportunism.
Dr. M’membe said this in Lusaka today after being reelected as Socialist Party President during the second SP National Congress.
“In whatever we do, we should never lose sight of the fact that the strength of our nascent party is neither imingalato nor money: but moral. It’s not even in the correctness of our decisions and actions. And socialism is about increased participation of our people in the governance of their communities and their nation; it is about people deciding together, building together to transform their communities, districts, provinces, and their country and thus transform themselves. It’s a growth in fraternal love,” he said.
“This requires us to forge strategic, permanent alliances with the authentic leaders of our people – traditional, religious, trade unionists, professionals, and so on and so forth. These are not, however, alliances conceived of only on the plane of a tactic of struggle. They are not just happenstance or political alliances.”
He emphasized that they are, of course, by definition, but the tie that is established here on the ethical or moral plane concerning a human being’s role – whether he be a traditional, religious, political leader or otherwise – in defense of the poor has the nature of a lasting, permanent, strategic alliance.
He said it is a proposition with a solid moral, political, and social basis.
“These strategic alliances are very different from happenstance alliances being pursued to primarily remove Mr Hichilema and the UPND in the 2026 elections. And I am not saying these happenstance alliances shouldn’t be considered at all,” he added.
“Not everything we have done can be said to have been wise; not all our decisions have been correct. In no revolutionary process have all actions and decisions been the right ones. Yet, here we stand, five years after our First National Congress in September 2019! We have not renounced a single one of our ideas or revolutionary principles. This honest, firm, staunch, irreproachable political attitude should remain a key characteristic of our party. We should never hesitate to recognise our errors and mistakes, and sometimes, this may require more courage than risking our lives.”
The Socialist Party President further said the stock of experience and revolutionary ideas that the party has inherited from its own history and that of humankind is the most precious treasure.
“This is shared duty for all revolutionaries that demand the most rigorous criticism and self-criticism and the most complete honesty,” he concluded.
SP Media