Editorial: Preaching water, but drinking wine

That is the state of our political parties in Zambia. All of them. They embrace democracy with their lips. Yet they repudiate it in their practice. They all insist that the country must be ruled on the basis of democratic tenets. Yet their own intra-party democratic culture is conveniently malnourished. With their left hand they exalt democracy.

With their right they cling to dictatorial tendencies, resisting internal party electoral processes that are free and fair, resisting popular participation,frowning at reform and expelling dissent. This is why we agree with Dora Siliya and her faction, not in the substance of their complaint (that is for MMD to decide), nor in their inner motivations (that we cannot tell), but we agree with the principle of their call – a political party must use a convention to peel off the old skin, legitimize its leadership, confirm its mandate, policies and goals.

A mist of self-deception has for long engulfed political parties in Zambia. What we often see is that anybody that does not echo the chords of their party president’s discorded, tyrannical hymn books is labelled a rebel. Perhaps they may be right, that if one, according to our version of the Free Dictionary, does not show an ‘attitude of devoted attachment and affection’ to the party, they fall under the category of what Robert Mugabe repeatedly calls ‘sell-outs.’ But then loyalty to the political party is not synonymous with blind faith, or dogmatic allegiance to one man’s selfish wishes.

Given what we have seen and heard from the MMD feud there are a number of questions that would have relevance to other political parties: Why does it seem that there is an un-written rule that party presidents can’t be challenged even when they are a clear liability to the party? Where did the idea that party conventions can only be held a few months to the general elections come from? Or that they must all be held at Mulungushi Rock of Authority no matter the cost? Why can’t political parties hold their conventions at some boarding school or college during holidays like religious organisations often do? Why is it that political parties will find the money to participate in by-elections no matter how clear it is that they will lose and yet go on to claim it’s too costly to  hold a party convention?Is cost not just a cheap alibi for insecure party vultures greedily waiting to share the spoils of the next general election?

We think that a political party cannot claim to embrace democracy, but then package it and shelf it, only to retrieve it when they get in power. Intraparty democracy is not meant to be a commodity for future consumption. Nor is it supposed to be dispensed at the whims of an incumbent president. When party members are dazed and anaesthetized with calculated repression, they cannot be said to be enjoying intraparty democracy. Democracy is for consumption here and now.

Democracy is not situational, a self-proclaimed clarion of nation state swagger, waved and engraved on national coats of arms.  It is measured in the daily workings of political organs. We cannot claim that since Dr. Kaunda stayed at the helm of UNIP for more 27 years, that’s the mantra everyone must follow. Dr.Kaunda may have soothed his ego for that long and groped around in the political wilderness preying on some kind of collective national absurdity that he termed one-party participatory democracy, but the era is supposed to be way behind us.

Unfortunately what we see in our political parties leaves our minds agape with more questions: Can we today, with our heads straight up, claim that MMD (despite the ‘D’ in their name) is a democratic party under the presidency of Dr Nevers Mumba? Or the PF, under the poisonous political excesses of Wynter Kabimba and his boss? Or the UPND of HH, HP of Brig. Gen Miyanda? No. They are not. So rather than rejoice at the troubles of MMD, it is time for all political parties to interrogate their own internal democracy.

Democracy is a spiritual condition of belonging, an acceptance that one’s political persuasion and identity is unique. It is not an expression of superiority by a few, but a humble acceptance of collective belonging by all who belong together. Democracy without popular participation is superficial. When your right to contribute to party affairs been bruised and stifled, that is not democracy. When your liberty to choose members of your party’s NEC of candidates to run for ward or constituency elections has been vandalized, and  ransacked by a few, your party democracy is punctured. When your party leaders are not performing to expectation and you have no way to show them the door, yours is an autocracy.

Democracy is not an exchangeable commodity that loses or accumulates value as a party crosses from opposing to ruling or vice versa. Intraparty democracy is not about one man or woman and his anointed cronies parceling it out at political rallies in exchange for delirious ululation. It is a right to be enjoyed by all.

We urge all members of political parties in Zambia, ruling or not, to demand for more intra party democracy. Demand for conventions. Demand to elect, not hand-pick people into vacant but elective positions.Demand the chance to choose your leaders. In all this, no one should be denied the chance to enjoy internal party democracy on the pretext of cost. Remember you can’t wait until you are ruling. You can’t hope to dispense what you do not have.

We beseech all political parties to stop preaching water while they are busy drinking wine! Charity begins not only at home, it begins now!