Fifteen years after UPND founder late Anderson Mazoka’s death, his widow and Pemba constituency lawmaker Mutinta Christine Mazoka reportedly told Hakainde Hichilema to adopt her daughter Mutinta Mazoka for Monze Central Constituency.
Her daughter faced competition from incumbent legislator Jack Mwiimbu who had been serving as MP since 2001. She wanted her daughter to be adopted at all cost because it was her father who formed the party and the incumbent had been MP for Monze Central Constituency for a long time but has done very little for the people in his constituency.
She also reminded the current party president that she was one of the influential people who made sure that he was the one who succeeded her late husband in 2006 hence he owed her and her daughter a favour in return. Was it a considered case of quid pro quo, perhaps? What of a political dynasty?
Quid pro quo is a Latin phrase used in English to mean an exchange of goods or services, in which one transfer is contingent upon the other; “a favour for a favour”. Phrases with similar meanings include: “you scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours too”, among others. Whereas dynasty is defined as a succession of rulers from the same family or line; or a family or group that maintains power for several generations.
A political dynasty entails the concentration, consolidation, or perpetuation of public office and political power by persons related to one another.
In truth, political dynasty is a term that is as old as politics itself. For the ancient civilizations their rulers were concerned with maintaining their legacy, the royalty would be passed from parent to child to ensure the family name continued on down the ages.
In demanding that her daughter must be adopted because UPND was founded by her daughter’s late father, Mrs. Mazoka obviously put Hichilema in a sticky situation of choosing between his close confidant and his late mentor’s daughter.
For the moment, though, the UPND leader was between a rock and a hard place – between the incumbent UPND Monze Central lawmaker seemingly entrenched in contesting in the upcoming elections and a myriad of disillusioned Monze Central constituents seemingly entrenched in seeing him out of the forthcoming parliamentary race.
With the on-going parliamentary and local government candidates’ adoptions, it is Catch 22 for the UPND president: on the one hand he is expected to readopt the incumbent Monze Central lawmaker who happens to be his close confidant – long thought to typify his time at the helm of the opposition party – as opposed to the optional candidature of his yet-to-be-named running mate that is believed to be reserved for a Bemba-speaking contestant.
On the other hand, he has to play the democratic non-committal political leader and let Mutinta Mazoka stand as an independent – knowing full well that the cost of doing so might be to the advantage of the ruling PF’s emerging electoral pulling power in Southern Province.
However, common-sense suggests that the type of reaction the UPND president was going to get from the Monze Central constituents would be unpredictable and possibly hostile. But cynics and critics have observed that his party’s politics have long given up being sensible and predictable. Besides, he has also shown self-inflicted traits of being a political dynasty ignoramus.
Known and unknown to many, national and intraparty dictatorships, attempted-coups, street protests and rebellions, free-and-fair elections and even Cambridge Analytica’s deployed third-party persuasion techniques – Zambia has seen it all.
But as Zambians go to the presidential, parliamentary and local government legislative polls in August this year, another worrying ingredient has been added to the mix. It is what some observers are calling “founder’s hereditary dynasty syndrome”.
This is not being segregationist by suggesting that those standing for office must be hereditary-linked to the founder’s family. Rather, the term refers to a ‘disease’ whereby the sufferer feels that by virtue of being a family member to the originator of a party, he or she has absolute authority on all matters concerning that party.
From the outset let us be realistic. Following the turbulent years after independence, Zambia is now enjoying a marked improvement in the area of governance.
The country has certainly turned over a page on the former-first President Kenneth Kaunda’s dictatorship which began to unravel in 1991 after the elections that saw voters reject his one-party state.
Yet a hangover of former-first President’s politics, this so-called “founder’s hereditary dynasty syndrome”, still threatens the country’s political establishment dominated by three major parties; the ruling PF, the UPND and the MMD. It is at the intra-party level that this subtle brand of dictatorship is particularly evident, as shown by the primary processes for the adoption of parliamentary and local government candidates for the August elections that were fraught with irregularities.
What these suggest is that the party founders together with their hereditary family members have an unrestrained hand in calling the shots, while at the same time party lieutenants ensured orders were obeyed. However, under the rule of the PF the country has more or less successfully navigated the sometimes turbulent waters of the past 10 years. It has brought press freedom, largely maintained human rights, fostered child development, supported the advancement of women and youths, and managed a peaceful co-existence of its different tribes and cultures.
But recently the euphoria has started to wane. Perhaps most tellingly, the ‘songs of the old’ no longer thrill the millennial generation, who will be casting their ballots for the first time.
For them, the most important issue will not be who fought alongside whom and for which side during the one party-state, but who will fight a battle on their behalf for economic prosperity and social uplifting.
Thus the millennial generation is hungry for jobs, houses, access to health facilities, education for their children and social security when they retire. These are promises previous governments have had difficulty fulfilling.
