WHY IS THE OPPOSITION FAILING TO PENETRATE RURAL AREAS UP NORTH?
Every election is an opportunity for self introspection and analysis, what went right and what went wrong?
In May 2020 after the previous round of By Elections, we did a similar analysis about rural voters.
As NDC we feel we’ve identified where the problem is and we think we know the solution.
WHAT’S THE PROBLEM?
Zambia has two economies, the urban economy and the rural economy.
In the urban economy the things that matter are unemployment, cost of living, load shedding, corruption, inflation, fuel, dollar exchange rate etc.
But in the rural economy these things are irrelevant, the people there are self employed as peasant farmers. 90% of the rural voters grow their own food, they live in villages, they don’t use electricity, they draw their water from wells and they certainly don’t feel the effects of inflation, load shedding etc. They are used to their way of life.
In rural Zambia what matters is just access to seed, fertilizer, land and eventually FRA buying the produce from them, end of story. And PF has mastered this game, they know what to take to rural areas during by elections. The opposition can’t take the same because only the PF as the ruling party has access to these state resources through FRA and Ministry of Agriculture.
The mistake we the opposition keep making over and over again is to go to these villages and start talking about corruption, fire tenders, inflation etc.
That message should stay in Lusaka and the Copperbelt. It doesn’t work in rural areas.
That message is irrelevant to rural Zambia, they don’t know about corruption and all these urban problems the PF has created.
The only way to reach out to rural voters is through a strong but easy to translate agricultural policy. This is the key to winning them over.
More and cheaper agricultural inputs.
Cooperatives.
Access to machinery.
Higher FRA crop buying price.
This is the message we need to take to rural Zambia.
As is know in marketing, there are the 4 P’S. Product, Place, Price, Promotion.
The rural vote is a niche market and it needs a tailor made specifically designed campaign message.
The only other challenges we have are access to rural voters because the PF routinely blocks us using the police, and also a lack of financial resources to reach the far flung areas.
And yes there still is an element of tribal voting in all rural provinces, that is unlikely to change but a good percentage of people can be converted with the right message.
Copyright @NDCMEDIA 18.09.2020