Why HH will win the 2015 Presidential election Part 1 Hakainde Hichilema has been a household name since the owner of the name joined active politics in 2006. Earlier on, people spoke of him more as the new kid on the political block or the man with a difficult name or indeed the man who was immensely rich beyond many a Zambian’s wildest dreams. But few actually thought he had any real chances at the Presidency. But now all this seems to have changed almost overnight. Hakainde Hichilema has basically become the front runner in this election. He is the man to beat. How the tables have turned! So how did the man they scornfully nicknamed ‘Hakaivotela Himwine’ become ‘Haleisa Haleisa’? Busting the myths Tribalism - Hichilema has been accused of being a tribalist. Now if he is just that, then it would be very difficult for him to govern a country like Zambia which has a diversity of ethnicities. But is HH really a tribalist? The answer to that question would be another question; what body of evidence have those that have accused him of tribalism deduced? The answer is none. There is simply no evidence to show that Hakainde Hichilema is a tribalist. There is simply no trail of evidence, from his University days, to his professional career, to his businesses, to his politics to show that HH is a tribalist. And the burden of proof will always remain on the shoulders of his accusers. Privatisation - There has been insinuations and innuendos that HH illegally benefited from the privatisation of public companies in the 1990s by the Chiluba administration. But alas ‘ifintu fila aluka mono’ for the Michael Sata presidency has basically rendered HH a free man as far as privatisation is concerned. Whilst in Opposition, Michael Sata repeatedly accused HH of illegality over privatisation. ‘’We sent the young man to sell companies on our behalf, but he ended up making himself rich’’, Sata would intone time and again. One of Sata’s first acts as President was to instruct the new DPP, Attorney General and Solicitor General to thoroughly investigate ‘the sale of parastatals including Intercontinental Hotel and Lima Bank’. Almost 3 years down the line now, there is deafening silence from GRZ on HH’s illegal dealings during privatisation. Clearly Sata had looked into every government ‘drawer’ and came up with no evidence to show that ‘Hichilema stole money during privatisation’. Just as Mwanawasa and RB before him, Sata also failed to link HH to illegality during privatisation! The numbers - Another ‘witty’ argument that has been devised to show that HH can’t win is the ‘mathematical equation’. The argument is that it would be very difficult for Hichilema to bridge the gap between the 18% he got last time and the at least 42% by which the past few elections have been won. Of course it’s POSSIBLE! Sata for example got 3% in 2001 and by 2006 had moved to 29%. That is a whopping 867% jump. Hichilema’s is much smaller compared to that. Chiluba, Mwanawasa and RB started from zero percent to win the presidency. Clearly politics is not mathematics. Politics, sometimes, is driven by what Allan Greenspan would call ‘irrational exuberance’.
Posted on: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 05:46:43 +0000
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