Zambia is in desperate need of quality leadership at all levels of society. We need leaders who understand the difference between politics and leadership. When faced with a choice between boosting numbers in parliament or ensuring the prioritisation of development projects, the pure politician will opt to increase his Partys representation in parliament while the committed and caring leader will be more concerned about whether partisan politics is getting in the way of development. A true leader puts the interests of the nation and the people first. A pure politicians puts the interest of his Party first. The reason why anyone involves themselves in politics should, after all, be based on the belief that they can do things that will be of benefit to the communities they have been elected to serve. It is important to point out that an elected member of parliament has the responsibility to serve not only those that elected him but even those that stayed away or voted for another candidate. This is the same with a head of state whose mandate is to serve all the people of Zambia in all constituencies and not only those that have MPs from his Party. How many times have we heard our politicians bragging at public rallies that they will only deliver development to an area in which they have an MP? Think about these words from an enlightened Zambian - Professor Paul Mwaipaya - writing about African leadership more than 35 years ago: When a nation allows some of its mediocre citizens to take charge of all its policy-making activities, it is most unlikely to succeed in .... facilitating systematic development, nor can it really promote and preserve human dignity. What generally happens in such a nation is the abuse of human dignity and human rights; the practice of political intimidation, which in turn develops fear of national leaders. Indeed mediocre leadership is notorious for practising nepotism, favouritism, suppression of liberty, equality, freedom of expression, and freedom of choice.
Posted on: Sat, 02 Aug 2014 21:09:30 +0000
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