ZAMBIA NEEDS NEW LEADERSHIP – DR FRED M’MEMBE OF SOCIALIST PARTY
On August 12, Zambians will face a stark choice: a choice between the future and the past. Today the case I put before the Zambian people is that if we are to secure the future for our children, for our communities and for our nation – the government of Zambia must now change in the real and revolutionary sense.
The neoliberal capitalist policies being pursued and advanced by our opponents belong to the past. Socialism is the future and we must build it now.
After a decade in power, the PF has lost touch with the poor and working people. They no longer understand what fairness, justice, equity and peace actually mean. They simply don’t understand the new challenges that we face now and in the future.
The challenge is to revolutionarise our hospitals and make health services free and socialised. And above all, the challenge to transform our education system and make it free and socialised.
The PF has no plans for the future because it’s not going to be there to deal with the challenges of the future. They are being sent to the wire on August 12. The way forward for Zambia is to elect a revolutionary party and President with progressive ideas to meet the challenges of the future.
A new President and a new government who understand and respect the values upon which our independence struggle was fought. Values of honesty, equity, humility and solidarity. We need to build a Zambia anchored on justice, equity and peace.
We need a nation where there’s decency, fairness and respect. You can’t have a plan for Zambia’s future if you have lost sight of such basic values.
For us Socialists, these values are in our DNA.
Zambia needs new leadership with fresh ideas for the future. With barely three months to go of this election campaign, the PF government has put forward no really new ideas for the future. It has run out ideas. It has clearly run out of energy. And it has run out of time.
The Socialist Party is offering new leadership with a plan for the future. And whatever amount of words and money the PF may yet throw at these long standing challenges over the next eleven weeks, it is just not going to be real. The truth is, it’s all just too late to be believable.
Nation building requires vision. And the cornerstone of our vision for Zambia’s future is an education revolution. We believe passionately in the power of education. We believe education is the engine room of equity. And the engine room of the economy. I would not be standing as a presidential candidate today were it not for the encouragement, instruction provided to me by the teachers who shaped my life. They made it possible for a child like me from Lubemba and Bulozi to finish school, go to university and be here today seeking to lead our nation into the future. I know the difference a great education can make.
Our vision for Zambia is to build a very good education system – so that we produce an innovative, skilled and well trained workforce.
The economies we are competing against are making huge new investments in education. They know that knowledge intensive economies will be the wealthiest economies of the future. We must take decisive action now.
We need nothing less than an education revolution now to improve radically the performance of the education system.
Universities are critical to the education revolution that Zambia so urgently needs.
Undoing the damage which this government has done to our universities will not be easy. But this challenge begins today.
Zambia cannot be put on the path of a knowledge economy if we do not help our universities attract and retain our best scientists, innovators and researchers into the future.
I approach this election with a passionate commitment to Zambia’s future. The values I bring to leadership are the values instilled in me by my strong Bemba royal upbringing. They are also the values that are intrinsic to this revolutionary party. I understand that life is sometimes harsh. But I believe that as a people we have a responsibility when one of us falls down, we must help to lift them back up. That’s what decency and fairness is all about.
Another thing I have learnt is the absolute value of hard work. Of not being wasteful. And the importance of planning for the future. For me, these are enduring values. And these are the values that as President I would bring to our nation’s challenges.
The nation now needs new leadership for the future. The nation now wants new leadership for the future. And today, I am ready to deliver that new leadership for Zambia’s future.
Fred M’membe
President of the Socialist Party