Dear Editor,
PF Presidential front runner, Dr Chishimba Kambwili can sometimes be overindulgent in his leadership charisma. It is true that individual or mass protests carry their own rituals and symbols, for example, burning effigies of prominent figures or the opponents.
But the lone protest by Dr Kambwili from Woodlands to Leopards Cemetery where he finally condemned new conditions of accessing Farmer Input Support Programme (FISP) failed to deliver the symbolic meaning.
The intent of the protest was noble. Government should not create conditions which are likely to block small-scale farmers from accessing FISP. It is pleasing to hear the reassurance from the government maintaining the FISP conditions so that small-scale farmers could still access the programme.
The lone protest is not about farmers. This was about electioneering for the PF presidency. The lone protest was about throwing positive light on Dr Kambwili as a pro-poor leader with the ability to take PF back to the founding principles such as pro-poor development which it had lost while in government through massive looting.
Perhaps, we need to give Dr Kambwili the benefit of doubt because the PF as corporate and Presidential aspirants in particular have been going through the rebranding process, and the lone protest may be an outcome of the process.
MIKE CHUNGU.
Author
