ABOUT POLITICAL BLACKMAIL BY HH: A CASE OF DEFACTO ALLIANCES
By Sean Tembo – PeP President
1. There is this narrative which UPND President Mr Hakainde Hichilema and his followers have been advancing; that every other opposition political must agree with them and work in concert with them, failure to which such a political party is a surrogate of the ruling Patriotic Front political party. I want to categorically state that we do not agree with such a narrative as it constitutes political blackmail by seeking to create a defacto alliance in favour of the UPND. Mr Hichilema further postulates that all opposition political parties must unite in order to remove a ruling party and that it is irresponsible and unpatriotic for us in the Patriots for Economic Progress (PeP) to seek our own identity by standing on our own. But the question that l wish to pose to Mr Hichilema is; did he, together with his UPND unite with PF in 2011 to kick out the MMD Government of the day? Or did Mr Hichilema and his UPND advance their own agenda in 2011 in the same way that PeP is seeking to advance its own agenda in 2021?
2. As Patriots for Economic Progress, we are not averse to political alliances. In fact, we strongly believe in the need for political alliances as a vehicle for growth of our party as well as for the ultimate benefit of the Zambian people. However, any alliance must be mutually beneficial to all parties. An alliance should not just benefit one political. Each party should make some sacrifices, which constitutes an investment into the alliance, in order to make an alliance work. When we joined the Opposition Alliance with 13 other political parties about 2 years ago, those were our expectations. At that time, we were willing to make certain critical sacrifices such as forfeiting to stand as a presidential candidate in 2021 so as to rally behind Mr Hichilema’s candidature, and also work hard to push the Opposition Alliance agenda in the public domain as well as help mobilize financial resources for the Opposition Alliance project. I was both the Chairman of the Media Affairs Committee as well as the Chairman of the Finance Committee for the Opposition Alliance and l worked tirelessly in both roles. As Chairman of the Finance Committee and within a period of a week, l was instrumental in organizing the Opposition Alliance end of year Fundraising Dinner at Intercontinental Hotel in December 2018, at which we raised more than K1 million for the Alliance. As Chairman of the Media Affairs Committee, l was instrumental in galavanting from one Media house to another to advance the Opposition Alliance, all at the expense of the PeP agenda. Anyone who understands politics will tell you that Media and Finance are the backbone of any successful political movement. And l handled both of these critical roles with impeccable diligence and competence. But after investing all this effort and sacrifices, Mr Hichilema was not willing to allocate some constituencies and wards for PeP to solely contest in in 2021, as part of the Opposition Alliance package. He point blankly told us that since UPND is more popular than PeP, the best he can offer is for our candidates to contest on the UPND ticket! To us, this amounted to dissolving our party and joining the UPND, which was contrary to our understanding and expectation from the Opposition Alliance. So l told Mr Hichilema that l will be withdrawing my party from his Alliance, and so we left.
3. However, it is evident that Mr Hichilema expected myself and PeP to continue advancing the UPND agenda even though PeP was no longer in an alliance with his party. Our view is that in the absence of a political alliance, there is no compulsion by any party to advance another party’s interests. The concept that the opposition must, by default, unite to kick out a ruling party is inherently flawed and is not shared by even Mr Hakainde Hichilema himself, because he clearly did not unite with PF in 2011 to kick out the then MMD Government. To the contrary, Mr Hichilema walked away from the PF-UPND pact. Sata and his PF solely beat MMD and kicked them out of office. But since today it benefits Mr Hichilema, he wants to advance a narrative that PeP has a duty and responsibility to help him kick out PF and that if we do not do that, then we are surrogates of PF. And yet, he is not willing to sacrifice a single constituency or ward in return for our support.
4. My view is that Mr Hichilema is a politically weak guy and he knows it deep down his heart that he does not posses the mental strength and prowess necessary to kick out a shrewd and brutal ruling party like PF. He knows that he needs the support of people like myself. But Mr Hichilema is not just a weak guy, he is also a selfish guy. He is not willing to give away even a single constituency or ward in return for the support of people like myself. He wants it all to himself. He wants us to rally behind him for free and escort him to State House. Even politically naive people like embattled Chishimba Kambwili who think that Mr Hichilema will make him his running mate will soon bite the dust. Now, these two attributes of being politically weak and yet selfish puts Mr Hichilema in a catch 22 situation. For his political career to succeed and for him to enter State House, Mr Hichilema will need the support and assistance of strong political players. However, those strong political players will be unlikely to offer their support pro bono. They will want some form of power sharing of sorts, which Mr Hichilema, by virtue of his inherent selfishness will be unable to grant. Just like he was unwilling to allow any alliance member to contest even a single seat in 2021, and wanted everyone to be under the umbrella of his faltering UPND party.
5. But being politically weak and selfish and not the only handicap for Mr Hichilema. He also has an inflated sense of being smart. He falsely believes that he can outwit his political allies. But his attempts to outwit his political allies are so shallow that they usually border on crookedness. For example, in 2016, Mr Hichilema allegedly entered into an alliance with three other political parties. The leaders of these three political parties were allegedly requested not to file as presidential candidates and in return, Mr Hichilema and his UPND would support the candidature of their MPs in selected constituencies. For sure, these three political leaders kept their end of the bargain and did not file as presidential candidates. They in fact are said to have gone on the presidential campaign trail with Mr Hichilema. However, when time came for Mr Hichilema to keep his end of the bargain, he decided to allow his party to file candidates in all constituencies including those he had allegedly promised to reserve for his allies. His then allies told me that Mr Hichilema’s excuse was that he had been overruled by his party, the UPND and that there was nothing he could do about it. In my view, such alleged conduct on the part of Mr Hichilema does not amount to outsmarting his political allies, but amounts to being crooked.
6. And today, despite being politically weak and yet selfish and crooked, Mr Hichilema feels that he is entitled to Sean Tembo’s political support. How dare you sir! Just like Sata and his then PF fought and beat MMD, you sir need to fight and beat PF by yourself. We at PeP shall also seek to fight and beat PF by ourselves. It is each man for himself and God for us all. In fact, you sir and your UPND have never supported us in any way, shape or form in our fight against the PF. We have challenged the PF and it’s Government in four cases in court (all of which we won by the way) and you sir never allocated us any of your lawyers among your large army of lawyers, and neither did you contribute a single Ngwee for our legal fees. We undertook 13 successful protests against the $42 million fire tender scandal and you sir never sent a single one of your UPND members to come and give us solidarity. While we were being attacked by Paul Moonga and his thugs along Cairo Road, you sir were lying on your couch at your home busy tweeting. And today, you feel that you are entitled to our support as you seek to fight the Electoral Commission of Zambia on very flimsy matters? Well, you sir can go to hell.
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SET 03.10.2020