Donald Trump and Michael Sata: A comparison

By Dr. Munyonzwe Hamalengwa

Sata

Donald Trump

Both Donald Trump and Michael Chilufya Sata could not be accused of lack of patriotism. If anything, their extreme patriotism led them to demagoguery, populism and extremism. Most times these two said things without thinking and they ended up catering to the basest denominator of their constituents. Because they held themselves as the common person’s spokesperson, they attracted a lot of people who had lost faith in clean and what is held as mainstream and corrupt politics. The salt of the earth to which these constituencies emanate bought root, stalk and branch what these two were propagating, as they had nothing they easily succumbed to the unrealistic lure of plenty of money in their pockets in 90 days, reform of the constitution in 90 days and other goods in the case of Sata. Trump has promised to fundamentally change the landscape of the United States immediately after taking power. He has not read Sata’s play book.

Trump and Sata because of their lack of education and finesse while being quite astute politicians because they understood human nature, resorted to attacking not the person’s ideology or platform, but his personal character and his or her family in their personal character. Their supporters still do the same thing, they refuse to reason but instead attack someone’s persona or tribe. No reasoning is deployed behind their attacks. They don’t even read what someone has said or written. They just assess many times wrongly what that other person’s political stand or tribe may be.

Trump has attacked the Muslims without distinction and without acknowledging that some of the most outstanding citizens of the US and the world have been Muslims, like Muhammad Ali, Karim Abdul Jabbar and many others and that Muslims have been in the United States since the beginning and some of them became or are currently lawyers, doctors, congress people, engineers, athletes, teachers, professors, drivers, mothers, fathers and ordinary Americans. The more Trump becomes belligerent against anything perceived to be foreign, the more his poll numbers rise.

Sata on the other hand in order to win an election and support from the West, denounced the Chinese, and won accolades from the West. Contrary to many people’s predictions, Sata won the election, no doubt to a great extent because of playing the Chinese card. Hardly had he come into power than he embraced the Chinese to his credit. Not even the Americans, the Europeans, the Japanese or Africans can alienate the Chinese and survive. All roads lead to Beijing. All investments come from Beijing.

Sata and Trump were their own men, no one, not even their wives could reign them in. It is the same when Sata got into power. Everything had to go through him. This kind of leadership can bring a lot of chaos in a country if the leader is not educated or over-commits himself as Sata did. He had the best interests of the people at heart but where to begin? Shortly, fiefdoms began to sprout all over the map because his lieutenants knew that he was over-committed and could not keep up checking on everything. Conflicts erupted among these zones of power. Sata was unable to quell these upheavals and quarrels among the cadres. Lawlessness was brewing un-quelled. Demands were made from his close friends and relatives for favours. Tribalism mash-roomed under Sata and this was irresistible. Where there is no overriding ideology of development like capitalism or socialism or humanism or other isms, tribalism always pervades. The PF had a party platform and ideology but it was cast aside because the imperatives of ruling pose different problem than when campaigning for power. Lambasting corruption is not an ideology when you have no vision of how to tackle this beast.

Trump will face the same problems as Sata faced if he is elected President of the United States. A one-man wrecking machine is not good for governance. Popularity doesn’t extend to everybody but the leader in a one man party, like the PF.

Sata’s chaotic leadership was witnessed after his death. The struggle for succession within the PF and its various fiefdoms was comedic to say the least. The reverberations from those dizzying succession battles, violence, crises, cadre-ism and tribalism are still being felt and echoes will continue living on for a long time. Fortunately, sense prevailed and the combatants turned to the judiciary and we still have a functioning and solid judiciary and the day was served. The Zambian judiciary is necessary for the survival of Zambia. Anyone who tries to tamper with the judiciary of Zambia, other than to equip it with more power and independence and improve its operations will strike a very hold rock indeed.

Warning: Thou shout not tamper with our judiciary. Another warning: Thou Shout not tamper with our freedom of speech and a free press.