By Daimone Siulapwa
IT seems in Zambia, politicians are almost law unto themselves. And if you happen to belong to the ruling party, then you are immune to prosecution until such a time that you leave them or differ.
Otherwise, our politicians are a big let down. They are always in the news for the wrong reasons. If you are looking for role model, please stay clear of politicians. You will hardly find any among our local politicians, academic, yes no doubt about that.
If our politicians are not bouncing cheques or shooting at unarmed citizens, then they are beating their wives, or they are grabbing other people’s wives, impregnating our 18-year old sisters and children or turning National Assembly Motel into a brothel.
Oh, and that is not all.
They are also driving under the influence of alcohol, they are conning possible foreign investors, they organize thugs to beat innocent people and remove their eyes and ears during campaigns or they are involved in money laundering.
It is a complete mess.
We also have the chief justice showing his political inclination by refusing to shake hands with the leader of the largest opposition political party at a funeral for that matter, Church Fathers are throwing away their robs in favour of war with the government through the Red card Campaign propaganda and so on and so forth? What happened to “forgive them father for they do not know what they are doing”
Each of these cases listed above has a name tagged alongside it. That, I can assure you.
But one wonders whether the police are professionally doing their work or are they compromised by an upper hand. And if they are being shielded, the question is why. And which upper hand is this anyway?
If by any chance, the Patriotic Front (PF) was to win next year’s general elections and form government, I can guarantee you that they will spend the first term of their five-year mandate settling political scores.
All those that have bounced cheques and have not been brought to book, will be brought to book, all those that shoot people and are still walking free, they will be jailed, all those that have companies that have benefited from government tenders and have political connections, they will be brought to book. Such is the simple mentality of our politicians.
Meanwhile, they would have conveniently forgotten about their campaign promises of putting more money in people’s pockets and reducing taxes.
Even Levy Mwnanwasa was not immune. It was part of his legacy.
How many of our generals did he send to jail for speculated crimes? Why didn’t he just strip them of their properties and retire them? That to me would have been the best punishment; so that we could see them live poor like us and probably die from frustrations like most of our honest hard working fathers and mothers who were not involved in corruption and served their country respectively? Where are they now? Most of them are dead, those that are living have nothing to show for having lived on this earth for more than 70 year or so and having worked for over 50 years of their lives?
Still, it is only in this country where we put the security of the nation at such a greater risk by jailing security chiefs including the spy chief. Do you have an idea how much some countries would pay for the information these people have?
What we really need in this country is a flexible leadership code not necessarily on the lines of the one we had during the UNIP times. If we were to retain that in its entirety, the results may be disastrous.
We may either kill the entrepreneurship skills of our leaders resulting in a situation where after retirement, they become destitute. We saw this with many former UNIP leaders after they lost the 1991 elections.
Or we may start using the leadership code to sort out our perceived enemies as was the case with former home affairs minister Aaron Milner during the Kaunda era where he lost his properties and ended-up a destitute in Zimbabwe. One of our great Independence struggle heroes if I may state..
Anyhow, the bottom is line is that we deserve better than we are currently getting from our politicians. That is the challenge our politicians have.
What are we going to leave for our children? The choice is ours and we must decide now.
Yaba!! Imwe sure I equally deserve better things to read not this article please.Politicians are like any other Human beings. Zambians should not just lament about politicians but ensure that they stop being spectators on issues of national development, instead they should be participants.
VERY TRUE,THANKS FOR POINTING OUT THE TRUE FACTS.THE RICH ARE BECOMING MORE RICH USING DUBIOUS MEANS &the poor ones gets poorer.MAY THE ALL MIGHTY PITY THE POOR ONES &ONE DAY LIFT THE POVERTY TO GIVE THEM EQUAL OPPURTUNITY TO LIVE A COMFORTABLE LIFE AT THE END.
I am very sure that the author is aware that every jim and jack knows that ‘Politics Is A Dirty Game’. I would rather urge him to understand and or draw a fine line between STATE SECURITY and HUMAN SECURITY. I wish to let him know that in politics we tend to abuse one of the three un defined philosophies POWER, RIGHTS, and INTEREST. Failure to apply these privileges correctly is what makes politicians what they are today in Zambia. But the argument is, WHO IS TO BLAME?
Good Afternoon
I tend to agree with nambala wanu Wapya Munzi. Moral decay is one thing but development is another. If you look at Western countries, I would say the moral standing of most of their leaders is far much worse than our leaders but they are fully committed to the development of their countries.
PS. LT please check your punctuations. The last sentence should obviously end with an exclamation mark and not a question mark…
There is a serious confusion amongst ourselves. We believe that fear amounts to respect. We have been brought up to fear elders, as a way of giving respect. Well, they are not gods these Politicians. We need to start confronting them, telling them about their mediocrity. It starts with the technocrats in the civil service, and the nation at large. With time, they will be held accountable. Do not fear them, just respect them. Even though they can posses utundala twakwiba, just tell them in their face, when ever chance allows, that we hate their leadership mediocrity.
This author doesn’t seem to be feeling the pain these politicians are inflicting on Zambians through their actions. Nothing will please me more than seing Banda, Shikapwasha, Siliya , Mulongoti , william Banda & their consultant chiluba behind bars once their tenure ends. Imagine, i’ve even stopped watching ZNBC news just to avoid raising my BP over blind statements & actions from these fellows.
No 4, Ni ne Chale,
I quote you “Moral decay is one thing but development is another. If you look at Western countries, I would say the moral standing of most of their leaders is far much worse than our leaders but they are fully committed to the development of their countries”. My question is, are you saying, its alright for our leaders to keep bouncing cheques, beating their wives and so on.. as long as they are developing your country? Mwaba shani bane
Most of Zambian leaders have for a long time been known to be thieves and in recent years they have taken it to a frightening level where they plunder to a point of bringing down the entire economy to its knees.
I have lost count of how many Zambian leaders have been imprisoned, On bail, awaiting arrest and waiting for the president to give instructions on who should be arrested and who should not. It’s a shame!
# 4, In addition to your comment, Western leaders’ commitment to their countries’ development is always paramount and when their shortcomings ( scandals ) are made public they have the decency to step down, something African leaders never do.
This article is all over the place…What exactly is the message? Are you complaining about politicians or everyone in authority? Can the editor please ensure you publish worthy articles not this piffle!
Well, the article is a good academic paper – factual. Its difficult to comment on such an innocent article like this one. The author seems to have lost all hope. Indeed its not all lost there is still we still have some options we could run to……
#9 I totally agree with you. This is an ill thought out and meaningless waste of space and time!
someday these mandrax dealers in mmd will leave office and their time to cry will have come..time will tell..
Politics will always be politics unfortunately – politicians likewise. politcians are not that a big problem according to me but we the rest; call us the masses – we are the problem. we lack appropiate machinery to deal with them. We create them, they dont create themselves.
#10 Sorry to disagree with you, but there is no academic value to merit in this article! Academic papers offer capacity for critical analysis; something that I cannot find. I equally cannot find any evidence of research as what appear to be facts are infact opinions.
# 9 and 11, you are spot on. This junk is not for any public domain. It is food for MMD cadres becaouse they feed on nothing but mediocricy. The author is childish and ignorrant. Those Generals were arrested for crimes they comitted. RB and regime will be arrested by PF for the crimes they are commiting. His ignorrance can be seen when he urgues that LPM shoud not have arrested the Generals but should have rather graped their loot. Please be informed that the penalty of a criminal offense is “imprisonment”. only in civil case do we recover the loot hence we wanted to register the london judgemet being a civil matter
Seems the author was lacking the zeal and perspective maybe lack of professionalism when jotting the article by clearly reminding us about the current political turmoil in our country of which we already know. The red card, shootings, wife battling, etc those are minor issues facing the people of Zambia currently. People in Zambia lack proper housing, quality education and health, unemployment and so many other things. The Zambian politics system is based on hatred, tribalism and favors. Worse now if you are not MMD then u are the enemy of the state join them you can even kill your neighbor and you will walk free tomorrow. continues….
continues..Zambia is currently the only country in the world experiencing the so called “democracy” where the minority rules the majority but we all know that vote rigging is the name of the game shame on the MMD! Mind you, we are not yet independent, 46 years of been free from our colonial masters we still struggling to make ends needs as a country. The Zambian political system generates a generation of beggars and dependents from generation to generation. If VOTING WOULD CHANGE THINGS IT WOULD HAVE BEEN ILLEGAL because how do you vote today and inaugurate tomorrow?? Not even in Rwanda that is possible but in Zambia we don’t care for our country and ourselves, we hate development like its harmful to our lives..
#14, thanks for that. You are 100% right. Its clear that #10 has no accademic exposure hence calling this article an accademic piece of writing.
no. 11 be sincere and dont overstretch no.9. For sure how best to deal with strayed intelligence guys like chungu -coze the fellows have zambias intelligence on their finger tips and since after prison sentence they will be broke who knows what they are capable of doing- God forbid.
No. 14 and 18 you may have missed the point. In academic writing the boarderline is the critical consistence of facts presented. the man just did that – no room for prejudicial/emotional tones. just look at the ending paragraphs. thus why no. 9 was somewhat correct with the questions. i think now the case ie rested. bye.
#20 is right.
Its nearly impossible to comment or advise Diamone Sialupwa (Author), he always not write but also talks like that, especially when he is drunk. So messed up minded guy.
Fwe bena Zambia, ni ifyo fine.I’ve been reading articles by the Post and LT.One thing I’ve noticed is, once someone posts the initial coment, most if not all the coments will debate the subject in a very linear pespective with very few projecting diverse veiws giving an opportunuty for it to be debated objectively.This is not a useless article as being potrayed by a number of readers most of whom I don’t even think can equal their writting skills to that of the author or indeed the Editing staff of LT. The article is an overal perspective of the Zambian political situation discussing both the governing party and the Opposition.Space for commenting is not a therapy point for sadists to offload their hurt loads, it’s for people all over the world to get well informed.
I can rejoice because thornbushes have roses or complain because rosebushes have thorns.Its all how you look at it.In politics there are no permanent friends or permanent enemies,just permanent interests to get elected based on changing situations
What we should be doing is that if a leader does an immoral thing we should all rise up and demostrate untill he or she resigns from his or her position, then they will learn not to be immoral. What happens is we just complain and comment and they are not moral enough to step down, so we should make them step down once they have been involved in a scandal. In this way we can perhaps cleans our government or political system. All civil society, all media houses and the general public must be able to rise against all such immorral leaders. We can’t continue like this. At least GBM resigned
Written under the influence. But not to worry Diamond, even great minds like Karl Marx imbibed themselves sometimes….contents of the article could have been arranged better but still- gave us something to contemplate on…….
I thought somebody was going to take it up when I talked of drawing a fine line between State Security AND Human Security and as well as between Human Development AND Human Security. The author has been very vague on these issues making some of us thinking he is talking out of context. The other important issue is that the author failed to show in his article whether Zambian politics misunderstand POWER as opposed to AUTHORITY, RIGHTS and FREEDOMS as opposed to IGNORANCE AND UNINFORED MINDS and lastly but not of the least of importance INTEREST as opposed to POLITICAL WILL. We can talk mountains with no tangible conclusion unless we politically draw a correct line of symmetry concerning these issues. Thats why I still insist that the author does not understand what he was talking…
The intentions of the writer are ok. It is the execution that seem to be all over. For sure, what does the jailing of the thieving military officers have to do with morality? Remember, I said jailing not the thieving itself. What does the denial of shaking hands have to do with morality in the presence of personal preference and personal rights? What does going on sabbatical leave as a Priest and fight for the poor got to do with morality? In fact the Priest by so doing, showed a lot of class and morality? How does PF winning elections next year become immoral? How does this writer justify the statement that PF will spend one year settling political scores? Total speculation.
Grading this paper wouldn’t be difficult. F or probably regard it as a draft copy.
no. 27 whatever you asked are moral questions. Hear this, morality as a word is as wide anyone could think. whatever the author raised is indeed a moral question. you dont have to put morality into a pegeon hole. As for No. 26 I dont follow your line of thought can you put your thought in black and white with your “line of symmetry thing'”.
#7 Mulenga, don’t get it twisted. Check #8 Distant Drums last paragraph.
I dont like grading articles but piece was rushed. It deserves to be a draft LT.
It matters not what our different opinions about this article may be. The fact remains that the state of Zambian politics has degenerated to levels that are an extreme embarrassment. We are the only country still smirking from the ‘wind of change’ hangover? The rest of the continent had moved on with developmental programmes whilst we continue politicking at great cost to the people of Zambia. Take a look at our neighbours; Angola and Mozambique. These countries went through devastating conflicts for decades, and yet they came out of these more united and have since taken up the challenges of re-development with the seriousness that it deserves, partisan politics aside. Let us borrow a leaf from what they are doing and right a serious wrong that has been installed on the Zambian…
#28 when we talk me political morality one aught to understand where these people their strength and impetus from. Is it out of Power of what they ‘are’, or selfish Interests or is it their Right to behave the way behave. The article does not give any clue.
I would argue that Zambian leaders are by far mire immoral than those in the West, in part because we hold them to a much lower standard. Our expectations from them are much less as is evidenced by how much we let them get away with. Shouldn’t it be immoral for every minister to be driven around in a vehicle that costs $30,000 and more, and be paid over 30 times more than the average university trained teacher? This is one of many questions we ask based on morality. Now of course the article deals with the much less controversial ones of theft, adultery and so on. Again, by far we have less of this in the West thanks to a more enlightened public/media. Inherently all humans are selfish, for that is out survival instinct; and thus the need for a strong moral compass and public pressure
The article is not properly done 4sho although the intention and purpose is cool. Problem ba Daimone aka bwalwa. You r bringing beer-hall arguments to the public forum! Please! You could have taken time to organise your thought and re-draft this poorly articulated article.
U have jst picked what u think r headlines frm a populist point of view and discussed those as the problems facing Zambia! Meanwhile leaving out what the real stuff is. Rumour does not constitute an article in this format. Leave it to the Post whose interests r already known.
This whole political immorality thing has been driven in recent years more by poor journalism than by politicians themselves. Journalists hav the power to put politicians in their place by ethical not drunken conduct exhibited in the article above
In the PF party alone – President = Immoral and has kids outside of wedlock and divorced first wife for girlfriend, Chairman elections = beats his wife because she is tired of his extra-marital affairs so much that recently one of his bastard children was sleeping with his legitimate daughter (incest), to be precise. MP = is being sued by women bearing his children out of wedlock. Another MP = being charged with fraud and theft of public funds in the billions. Is this a good choice for new government in 2011?
The reasons GBM gave for clobbering his own wife and his reasoning for why people should not condemn his animal behavior are most laughable indeed. He also does not come across as being educated, the glaring deficiency of intellectual substance in his stance is shocking. To apologize while at the same time smearing others with his own filth is just nutts. Ubunangwa bwakwa nsofu Mwamba kwena bwafulisha saana.
I now wonder what constitutes political morality. Probably a scandal that does not involve a certain percentage of cultural norms. We should also accept the fact that we dont use the same lense for a Public figure with an ordinary citizen.
The problem with Zambians is that they keep voting in poor farmers with little or no education, poor people will always try first to line their pockets… that is why in the states you cant be poor and run for office