Who is #PF’s president? | Post: #Zambia: postzambia/news.php?id=4342 It’s not surprising that things stand as they are in the Patriotic Front today. From October 28, the day president Michael Sata died, it was clear that the process of coming up with his successor was not going to be an easy one. Not because the procedures for doing so are not clear or are arbitrary. Even before Michael’s death, there were strong indications that some people were not looking at their party constitution and the democratic processes in it to guide the succession process. There were some people who seemed to think that Michael would anoint his successor, and that would be it. They never bothered to look at their party constitution to see that such an approach was not possible because Michael, as Patriotic Front president, had no such powers. Probably this is why Michael never anointed a successor because doing so would have been contrary to the letter and spirit of the Patriotic Front constitution. This problem also was compounded by inconsistencies in the interaction between the ruling party and the government. While Dr Guy Scott was the Patriotic Front vice-president and Vice-President of the Republic, Michael used to leave junior party and government officers to act as President of the Republic whenever he left the country. Alexander Chikwanda, the Minister of Finance, and an ordinary member of the Patriotic Front, used to act as President of the Republic, leaving the party vice-president, the Vice-President of the Republic and the secretary general of the Patriotic Front watching. Sometimes he would have the party treasurer and minister, Emmanuel Chenda, act as President of the Republic. At other times, minister Edgar Lungu and then justice minister and party secretary general, Wynter Kabimba would also act as President of the Republic. This definitely was a recipe for confusion. It didn’t help make clear the hierarchy of the party and government. And when Michael appointed Edgar as party secretary general, Minister of Justice in addition to him being Minister of Defence and left him to act as President of the Republic, a perception might have been created that he is the anointed one, the chosen one, the successor. But how? How could Michael anoint Edgar when he didn’t have the powers to do so under the constitution of the Patriotic Front? It was very clear from the very beginning that Edgar and his supporters believed that he was the anointed one and all that was needed for him to be successor was simply a ratification by the party’s central committee, fellow Cabinet ministers and members of parliament. But under what provision of the Patriotic Front was this going to be possible? As a result of this perception, Edgar and those backing him did not want to go to the general conference and compete in an open election. They insisted on the central committee endorsing the successor, the anointed one, the chosen one. When this was becoming problematic, they started going round to members of parliament, including even those who were not members of the Patriotic Front, for endorsement. This culminated in a meeting on November 13 of members of parliament at the Government Complex, where the majority of those in attendance agreed to adopt Edgar as the party’s presidential candidate in the January 20, 2015 presidential election. But again under which provision of the Patriotic Front constitution was such an approach possible? They tried very hard to impose this decision on the entire party, including on those who did not agree with their approach, those who insisted on going to the general conference to elect the new party president and candidate in next January’s elections. The differences over this deepened. Edgar and his supporters did not want the general conference. They wanted Edgar to be made president of the party through endorsements and not elections at the general conference. They tried everything possible to stop or frustrate the holding of the general conference. And their statements on this score are well-documented in all the news media outlets. A last-minute attempt was made to get the general conference stopped through an injunction made by one Mulenga Fube, who warned that if the general conference went ahead, there would be mayhem, bloodshed. This injunction failed and the general conference was allowed to go ahead. This time, Edgar and his supporters had no choice but to go and attend the general conference, a process they had so much tried to stop, avoid, frustrate. And from the way they conducted themselves on the way to Mulungushi Rock of Authority in Kabwe, and indeed whilst there, it was clear that they still didn’t want the general conference to proceed in the normal way, in a manner that would render its outcome credible and acceptable. The conduct of Edgar and his supporters at Mulungushi was geared at one and only one outcome - the failure of the whole process. They tried very hard to frustrate the accreditation process and make things unworkable. In the end, they had no other alternative but to try and do their own thing there and render the whole process impracticable. When everything they had up their sleeve failed, Edgar made his supporters declare him the leader of the Patriotic Front in the most shameful of ways - by concentrating the unaccredited supporters they had bussed in and making them raise their hands to ratify him as president of the party. As old Daniel Munkombwe remarked, is this really the way a big political party like the Patriotic Front can vote in a president? Immediately after this, they left Mulungushi for Lusaka. On arrival in Lusaka, they started looking for a judge in the middle of the night to grant them an injunction to stop the proceedings in Kabwe from going on, proceedings that were borne out of a failed injunction initiated by themselves. An ex-parte injunction they had obtained at 01:00 hours on Monday, December 1 to stop the proceedings at Mulungushi encountered serious practical challenges. It was not possible for the agents to enter Mulungushi and serve it on the persons it was directed to. Security was extremely tight around Mulungushi and no unaccredited persons, after they had left, was able to go in and disturb the proceedings. The agenda of the general conference was concluded in the late hours of Monday and Miles Sampa was elected Patriotic Front president with 900 votes. All these today are matters for the courts to decide. The court is being asked, in some way, to choose a leader for the Patriotic Front members. Is this possible? No. This is like going to court and ask for help in choosing a spouse. This is a decision not for the courts but for the members. The court’s duty is simply to determine whether the constitution, regulations and procedures of the party were followed in the election of the new Patriotic Front leader. But did things have to come to this? Is this a matter really to burden the courts with and increasingly draw them into politics? If we want to maintain the integrity of our courts, let’s try as far as possible to leave them out of politics and let political issues be concluded by politicians and their supporters. In saying this, we are not in any way saying that if there are legitimate questions or differences over how party constitutions, regulations and procedures should be interpreted, we should not turn to the courts of law for help. But let’s do so sparingly and only when it is absolutely necessary. What may be the issue here is not necessarily matters of interpretation but issues of political differences and preferences. The issues of interpretation of party constitutions, rules and procedures are simply pretext. Anyway, whichever way, the succession differences in the Patriotic Front are before the courts of law and will be decided by our judges. - See more at: postzambia/news.php?id=4342#sthash.bBAFR0PX.dpuf
Posted on: Thu, 04 Dec 2014 08:54:56 +0000
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