Zambia’s political attention-seekers came to the fore as campaign rallies ahead of the August 12 national polls were suspended following a more lethal Covid-19 third-wave pandemic which kept on ravaging the country. At a media briefing, Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) Chief Electoral Officer Patrick Nshindano explained that campaigns had not been suspended except for campaign rallies.
He explained that the suspension might be lifted after reviewing the situation adding that the ECZ was disappointed with stakeholders that were still debating the Covid-19 issue that had claimed so many lives of Zambian citizens and urged all political parties to adopt other methods that attracted minimal numbers of people such as door-to-door campaigns.
Despite the fact that the Chief Electoral Officer disclosed that their decision followed a recommendation from the Technical Committee and deliberations at a recent Political Parties’ Consultative Forum, the UPND went ahead to challenge the banning of rallies by the ECZ in the High Court. I think by now you can see where all this might lead to.
These Covid-19 prevention restrictions invariably triggered political attention-seekers and their vigilante groups’ reactions that brought them to the fore. Historically though, armed with machetes and catapults with overt political agendas, these vigilante groups have a habit of surfacing when general elections are around the corner. And one of such groups belongs to the UPND’s youth wing which has been a particular security headache of late.
If you snored through last fortnight in politics, believing it a fairly inconsequential time – brothers and sisters you were wrong! Once again, Zambia Police Service bravely leapt to the defence of the security situation on the Copperbelt. The UPND vigilante group had threatened its collapse, but the police service managed to pull it back from the brink. The fact that this happens every time general elections are around the corner makes it no less inauspicious. Stage-managed bravado and choreographed heroism should never be taken for granted.
Don’t take my word for it. We can probably all recognise those attention-seeking people in our lives – and increasingly it seems in politics – that have a hugely inflated sense of their own importance and abilities, combined with a relative disregard for others. When you meet someone like this, their bravado can be alluring at first, but soon the sheen wears off as their look-at-me antics and disdain for others becomes increasingly apparent.
You’ve probably come to find the narcissist in your political party or family arrogant and annoying. If so, that’s understandable, but actually some of the latest research findings in this area suggest that the most appropriate response to narcissists is probably ignore, and ignore. Not only that, if we could keep in mind that desperate people need attention, it would change the way we see almost everything they do, from politics to crime, from romance to terrorism. And we must. Facebook alone harvests and sells the attention of 1.4 billion people every day. That’s about a fifth of the world. This alarms some people, and it is a big challenge.
But we can’t know what to make of it until we understand what people need attention for. One way to seek attention is to do something that gets lots of it – politics, crime, journalism maybe – but that seems to have another purpose. The purpose matters. Otherwise you risk the special scorn reserved for people who are “notorious for being notorious”.
Out of concern, Inspector General of Police (IG) Kakoma Kanganja was watching political attention-seekers closely as he dispelled social media reports that the Zambia Police attempted to assassinate opposition UPND leader Hakainde Hichilema. The IG denied the reports that police fired live ammunition at the UPND leader whilst he was on the Copperbelt and described the rumours as cheap propaganda aimed at hoodwinking people and drawing sympathy from the voting public for the sake of gaining political mileage. For security personnel, the prospects were ominous. A face-off of PF and UPND’s die-hard supporters who populate the Copperbelt was a recipe for real trouble.
Zambian opposition politicians are no slouches – they had already reached this conclusion. Patriots for Economic Progress (PeP) leader Sean Tembo was out last fortnight taking a swipe at the ECZ, for banning “opposition political rallies” whilst allowing President Edgar Lungu to continue “holding rallies” across the country under the guise of inspecting developmental projects.
One of the sticking points, apparently, was Sean Tembo’s desperate concern that the opposition could also hold rallies so that they could inspect the suffering of the Zambian people across the nation, in the same manner and fashion that President Lungu was inspecting his “developmental projects”. That’s how fragile our society is right now – albeit one word could tip it over. Does opposition leaders’ concern remind you of the word incumbent?
Worth noting though, an incumbent may have an advantage in creating a favourable image in the eyes of the voters. The incumbent may have to choose a position before the challenger. Besides, candidates run for election by choosing a position in an ideological spectrum. Voters care about candidates’ chosen positions as well as non-policy attributes of candidates, which analysts call charisma.
Certainly last fortnight, it wasn’t just those who missed wielding political power who were ringing alarm bells – or, rather, the same alarm bell, over and over. The PF chairperson for the manifesto committee, Given Lubinda explained that the ruling party would not be tempted to hold rallies against Covid-19 protocols just to prove its popularity to the opposition. Adding that, it was highly irresponsible for any political party to insist on having public rallies and gatherings just to demonstrate their political clout whilst risking the people’s lives.
He emphasized that political parties should not wait for mass fatalities before obeying the Covid – 19 restrictions as stipulated by the World Health Organization (WHO). The former Justice Minister explained that the Covid-19 regulations were not created by the PF but globally, by WHO authorities, hence the need to take them seriously.
