By Daimone Siulapwa
Elias Chipimo Jr, a sober and well-respected lawyer announced the formation of a new political party a few months ago. And it has not been easy for him.
At this stage, it is difficult to tell whether his party, the National Revolutionary Party (NAREP), will go on to make an impact, be it in next year’s elections or subsequent ones.
But one thing is clear, he has brought with himself a new type of politics. A son of former diplomat and radical politician Elias Chipimo, it can only be assumed that he is not new to politics.
The only thing new is that he wants to have a different way of doing politics.
The Zambian political scene is littered with politics of insults. The one who insults the loudest is likely to have the headline.
Very few of our politicians address issues or policy when politicking. Instead, they will quickly resort to personalities. And these are the people we seem to regard as our leaders. But what is leadership, if you cannot even provide us with a policy direction when confronted with an opportunity. For me, politicians that attack each others personality instead of providing policy or discussing the issue are devoid of any idea to move this country forward.
I want to wake-up and hear a politician talk about how he is going to improve the housing situation in townships so that we do not have families moving to a site near the Independence Stadium because their house is flood.
I want to hear how a particular politician is going to improve public education and health so that I do not have to pay a lot of money to take my child to a private school or hospital.
I want to hear how a politician is going to reduce tax but at the same time be able to raise enough to be able to provide the necessary services central to a functioning State.
For me, I am more interested in the HOW and not the WHAT. We all know what problems confront our country. What we are looking for rather are solutions. How are we going to solve them?
And if somebody is confident enough to say they are capable of providing leadership and solutions to these problems as long as they are elected and given the instruments of power, then I might as well know how they are going to sort the mess.
But no, our politicians do not want to discuss the how, instead, they are happy to insult each other. Well, no one is demanding that they be role models, but at least they should be above the average person. The way our politicians go about resolving their differences now is not different from the way an average person on the street, in fact, call boys resolve theirs – through insults and violence. Or else, how do explain the hiring of thugs in the name of cadres to disrupt election campaigns.
Cadres are simply taking a leaf from their leaders who, instead of telling voters how they are going to solve issues affecting them, they are busy attacking each other personally in the media.
With the amount of problems confronting this country, one wonders where these people get this luxury of time to insult each other at the expense of trying to move the country forward. And these are the people that talk about being in a hurry to develop the country.
Well, you do not develop the country through insults, they seem to be pre-occupied to leave us with as their legacy.
PF should read this article. The title should be “Lessons to PF on issue based politics”.
“I am more interested in the HOW and not the WHAT”
That is good, but this tends to disadvantage the party in power because no one can solve all the problems at once. For example, while one is dealing with the electricity issue, there would be floods. While one is building a ne Lusaka General hospital, the UTH is congested. There will always be an area to criticise in any situation. What the public must agree on are priorities. What is of foremost importance to the voter? Is it, to have 24 hours electricity or to send children to a good school? Is it to drive on excellent roads or to have excellent health care? Is it to fill up environmentally polluting 4x4s with cheap fuel or an excellent public transport system? Priorities! That is the right approach!
ISSUE BASED POLITICS THAT IS WHAT WE PRACTICE IN MMD AS POLITICS OF INSULTS AND NEGATIVE CRITICISM ARE IDENTICAL WITH PF AND UPND. THEY WILL ALWAYS CRITICISE BUT OFFER NO SOLUTIONS. THE ONLY TALK OF MORE MONEY IN YOUR POCKETS AND LESS TAX.
even if you say HOW, it’s still just words. what the country needs is ACTION
If I led a party in power I would give each of the 5 years to address a specific problem. In that way, resources are pooled to deal decisively with specific issues. Take roads for example, it is crucial we have good roads. The colonialists and the BSA company built road ands railway line from ports to the mines. We need good road and rail networks so that agricultural produce can be reached cheaply. Second year would be rural electrification. The colonialists built the first hydro power station in Africa in Mulungushi to provide power for production, not consumption for city dwellers. Electricity MUST go to producers, eg mines, farmers. Third year would be schools. Fourth year would be hospitals. Fifth year would be consolidation and I am out to retire!
Unlike people in the west, Zambians are consumers and the more money they have in the pocket, the more they spend. Therefore the best personal tax regime in Zambia would be to reduce personal income tax and increase value added tax. The spending must be taxed and not the ioncome. The result will be a more careful management of money, leading to increased savings. Increased savings leads to reduced borrowing rates. This is one thing that puzzles me about economists in Zambia, why they cannot see that lending rates are so high because we are not savers. Zambians use banks for collecting their salaries.
LT, I think this is kind of debate we need on this blog, Chipmimo is sober minded and can help change the way young people look at politics. In 2011, we need to have Chipimo, Mtesa, Milupi and maybe Miyanda to stand. If we had these people as candidates I can assure you that the campaigns will be issue based. Rupiah, Sata and HH should retire in the interest of national development. Lord help Zambia!
Am made to wonder how this message will get to any right minded zambian out there, MMD perpetraters like LT included. Every zambian must know that insults are not strange to politics. Even in America-worse in England as we saw the just ended coalition formation by dems & Torries. Whoever says politics of insults must be an issue that will decide the end is mistaken. The fact that Elias may portray himself as a saint must be worrisome. ABY LINCOLN once said ” a man without vice, probably does not have virtures. In a way, someone is just trying to draw the masses attention from the many issue and that i.e fact that PF and UPND may be the only reasonable contenders to long lived MMD. Political insults cannot be termed so, they are just a way of “checking characters”. The weak always fall…
#s 2, 5 and 6 The Saint, I like your sober commentary, but is not possible to implement such projects as road/school/hospital construction in one year year. They are likely going to overlap into the following year or might even take more than 3 years. On reducing PAYE and increasing VAT on goods and services in order to encourage savings, I don’t see how this can work. Consumption of goods and services should be encouraged by lowering VAT, this stimulate production and consequently new jobs would be created and overtime PAYE would reduce as there would be more people paying PAYE. The banking industry does encourage savings in country, they make their money through salary backed loans. Interest rates on saving accounts are pathetically low.
#s 2, 5 and 6 The Saint, I like your sober commentary, but is not possible to implement such projects as road/school/hospital construction in one year year. They are likely going to overlap into the following year or might even take more than 3 years. On reducing PAYE and increasing VAT on goods and services in order to encourage savings, I don’t see how this can work. Consumption of goods and services should be encouraged by lowering VAT, this stimulate production and consequently new jobs would be created and overtime PAYE would reduce as there would be more people paying PAYE. The banking industry does not encourage savings in country, they make their money through salary backed loans. Interest rates on saving accounts are pathetically low. You better off spending your money without…
I think if we did not have short memory like we do, may be we may learn from the lessons of MMD rule. When FTJ came on the scene, he was like John the Baptist, preaching the goog news to all the world in zambia. There are even well documented prayers he made on his swearing in ceremony, & the Gabon disaster. If you are shallow minded, you would be swayed by his oratory. He ushered in the seeming spiritual awakeing that we saw through pa zed through Nevers,Pule,Banda and Imakando. Where are they-Imakando is now driving a blacker Hammer! The rest you know. The corollarry of this is that we musnt take the outward look and make a conclusion. Lets give him 5years to prove. We have seen HH. I dont know whats wrong with him but may be a gud candidate. Sata is not bad too.The devil we know is beta
We should give people like Elias a chance to rule this country. After what Zambia has gone through, we should not be taking chances with the politicians that have failed us. RB has failed to build on what Dr. Mwanawasa started. Sata was Chiluba’s inside man. What new programmes can they bring besides insults? All this whilst poor Zambians wait for a miracle. I say, let’s listen to Elias and NAREP and we’ll not regret.
Ba MMD stop telling lies only a few weeks ago at Chifubu your RB, Namugala and Sichilima never said a single senence without insulting Sata. Man before you say that your neighbours clothes are dirty check if it your window panes which need washing.
The problem with Zambian politics is that when you don’t insult you don’t get the headline news. Haven’t you wondered why HH is not grabbing headline news at the moment, especially with the Post? It’s because he has gone to default mode, the same kind of politics Chipimo is talking about. Chipimo’s message can only bear fruit if he teams up with like minded ‘Cheetah generation’ of politicians like HH, Nawaki and Milupi to form a formidable political front. On his own he will just end up as a lone voice barking in the wilderness. He needs to learn from Miyanda, Miyanda is one politician who has tried to play the respectable game for the past 10 years put failed to gunner a substantial following. In Zambia you need to mix it up the HH way, insult when it’s necessary to be on the…
#6 please go home and share this brilliance with our dull ministers. I completly agree with your position.
lol
Ba #1, issue based politics … who MMD? lol
Let’s be serious for once… perhaps we are ever jocking, that’s how come we are never taken seriously by our leaders.
Issue based Politics have no place in African politics because our politics are personality based.Just how do you avoid denouncing quacks who claim to have a know how when you actually know their mental capacity like a pig wearing silk.You can never detach politics from personalities anywhere else even in USA personality is a big issue.
Whatever issues you are talking about are driven by persons claiming to have the skill to fufill
As long as God breathes air in the lungs of mwine Zambia, Zambians will always talk the talk and at the end of everyday remain in the same one position, where they started or in most cases these days, miles backwards. And to a very large extent, two types of people have brought Zambia to this sorry state of affairs, lawyers (like this so called Chipimo Jr) and kaponyaz (like Shikapwasha, William Banda, Sata etc. If there are types of people who do not deserve to be on this earth, it is these two types of people and I hope the next president either eliminates them all or gags them all the way Lazo Chiluba fixed the chiefs. Imagine how much development we can do if lawyers were banned from politics in Zambia?
zambia is doomed!! thats why i left and relinquished my citizenship! there is nothing good in that country! i wud advise u all in zambia to start lining up kuma visa office. the earlier the better bane. deuces
no 20 calm down see the wisdom
How Elias has started is how HH started, HH in his early days seriously critised politics of insults,what happened is he became very un popular and some people even said he is not matured.Politics wether in US,UK, Russia etc are a dirty game. Believe me or not.Iam not incouraging insults but simply stating facts.If elias is not ready to insult then let him remain out side politics like me, otherwise he will be found wanted by the Zambian people for behaving contrary to what he is preaching. If I were him I would wait until I test the waters before passing such comments.I can see already that he has failed and he is not going anyhere.
#1 you are so cheap in thought and understanding issues. The writer or architect of this article did not say PF. According to what we have recently witnesd MMD are the ones promoting violency. William Banda is not PF. RB is not PF. The police force instead of being neutral have become MMD cadres. I was just reading about PF rally in Kitwe. Their leader Michael Sata adviced the members against violency. In fact its MMD who should be reading such articles as opposed to PF and UPND and other opposition parties.
Coming to the article itself. I totally agree with young Chipimo. Leaders are not explaining their manifestos- how they are going to solve problems mentioned in the article include shortage of power (ZESCO), energy (fuel petrol and gas), the lack of processed tap water in towns and villages, sewerage systems which have been neglected, etc. I also dream of a time when leaders will be telling people in simple language HOW their respective governments intend to solve these problems.
Coming to the article itself. I totally agree with young Chipimo. Leaders are not explaining their manifestos- how they are going to solve problems mentioned in the article include shortage of power (ZESCO), energy (fuel petrol and gas), the lack of processed tap water in towns and villages, sewerage systems which have been neglected, etc. I also dream of a time when leaders will be telling people in simple language HOW their respective governments intend to solve these problems. Thats what people want to hear.
#6 the problem is not about consuming. In fact westerner are largest consumers as compared to Zambians. We are small-time consumers. The problem is in, ‘do we consume what we produce in the country or what is produced outside the country- imported in other words’? This question transltes into, ‘are we a manufacturing and processing industry country’? In the western economies, people hugely consume what their countries manufacture and process. In Zambia a handful of citizen/residents are previleged to afford imported goods while a large section of the population starve. Therefore, the answers are in the government encourage Zambians (mainly) to setup manufacturing and processing industries. If the government finds it difficult to encourage indigenous investors, then the governmemnt…
from #26…itself should take up the initiative to establish these industries and then at a later stage flock most or all the shares to Zambians- to run these companies. With all the minerals Zambia has, we should be able to turn the country into an electronic, power tools, water pipes, electrical wires, and steel manufacturing country, etc. We also have plenty of sand for glass (especially construction structural glass) manufacturing. And with Zambias largely fertile land we should be a bread basket- producing and processing agricultural outputs into consumable foods and drinks. These are the answer for Zambia’s economic problems.
…..#5 The Saint, well said. However, Zambia needs to implement strategies in a variety of sectors that underpin governance. Prioritising areas that need development while working to sustain those that are in place is the way forward. Ministries responsible for health, education, sport and community & rural development share critical cross-cutting initiatives that could guide sound funding strategies. This could reduce public spending on independent ministrial projects. These savings could then be invested in strategies aimed and increasing social capital. Social capital is key for Zambia’s development. Our country is crying out for a new generation of politicians. Yes, Chipimo could be one of them….having looked on this blog, I have seen smart conversations that could seriously help…
# 20 ndalya live…..you are funny! lol. we’ll all go home one day, one way or the other! Big up Mr Siulapwa….We need new minds with vision in all places, Media, Gov, allover chabe!
Calling a thief a thief is not an insult. I have never heard Sata call any MMD ati Chikkalla, has any one?
Probably we have seen Chipimo at this late hour in Zambian politics. The young man’s party will go no where. His party is for the apamwambas. In Zambia you will go no where discussing text book politics. What is his agenda? Does he know where Chifubu, Mufumbwe, Luena, Mpongwe, Chimwemwe? If does, did he forget to put people on the ballots in those areas? So, where is his one man party going? The guy does not have any charisma to hold an audience for more than ten minutes. So, he has to say something very big in that ten minutes if has to make a mark on Zambian politics.
#1 You are one person very strong on evidence. Give us evidence when PF insulted anyone. I will give you when Banda insulted Sata and HH. Be a man, produce evidence.
20 is a is like a hyna which runs aey from its own shadow , you are in a country which your friends developed . You should have stay and fought .