The Movement for Multiparty Democracy is unpopular, but it is still likely to win in the upcoming elections
Gregory Mthembu-Salter
As Zambia prepares to go to the polls in landmark presidential and parliamentary elections, President Frederick Chiluba marked the country’s 37th independence anniversary on Wednesday with a strong warning to the international community not to interfere.
Last Friday, in an apparently deliberate echo of Zimbabwean government rhetoric, Vice-President Enoch Kavindele accused Britain of helping opposition parties, and in his independence speech Chiluba said it was “unpardonable” for anyone to undermine Zambia’s stability by “wilfully funding dissent”.
Opposition parties claim the electoral registration process has been flawed, creating opportunities for the ruling Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) to rig the results in marginal constituencies, and have appealed for international election monitors to stop this.
On Wednesday Chiluba said that while Zambia would permit international election monitors, “Monitors should not start making discoveries. There are no more discoveries about Zambia. We need no wise men from the East or the West to tell us how to govern ourselves.”
Chiluba was forced to abandon his bid to run for an unconstitutional third term as president earlier this year, and the MMD’s new presidential candidate is a former MMD vice-president, Levy Mwanawasa. Mwanawasa resigned from the government in 1994 in protest against corruption and has since practiced as a lawyer.
Unfortunately for the MMD, Mwanawasa has so far performed dismally at campaign rallies, notably failing to shake off persistent accusations that a car crash in 1991 left him mentally impaired. Mwanawasa’s insistence at one event that he was “not a cabbage” has ironically served only to encourage discussion of his fitness for office.
Mwanawasa’s main opponent will be another former MMD vice-president, Christon Tembo. Tembo was Zambia’s vice-president until May, when he was sacked by Chiluba after leading a Cabinet campaign to stop the third term. Tembo then co-founded the Forum for Democracy and Development (FDD), which has quickly become Zambia’s strongest opposition party. At the FDD’s national convention on October 13, Tembo was elected party president with a clear majority.
Tembo was the Zambian army’s commander-in-chief under former president Kenneth Kaunda, but was imprisoned for two years in 1988 after Kaunda suspected him for attempting to organise a coup against him. Tembo was released in 1990 and a year later joined Chiluba’s MMD Cabinet, heading several portfolios before being made vice-president in 1997.
Last week Kavindele claimed that Tembo had Malawian parents, and was thus ineligible to be president, under a controversial constitutional provision that was used by the MMD to prevent Kaunda from contesting the presidential elections in 1996, leading to a boycott by most opposition parties.
Some commentators fear a repeat performance this time, and a boycott handing the MMD another easy victory. But Suresh Desai, another former member of Chiluba’s Cabinet who is now the FDD’s finance spokesperson, insists it will be different.
“Kaunda’s party made the mistake of boycotting in 1996, but we will not do that. The FDD will contest the election under Tembo’s leadership, and then tackle any disputes about his nationality in the courts afterwards.”
Desai says there should be no objection to this since Chiluba did the same in 1996, contesting the elections and then later defending himself against allegations about his nationality from opposition parties in the courts.
Most Zambians are fed up with the extent of corruption in public life, and to a large extent blame the MMD for it. In addition, many people were strongly opposed to Chiluba’s attempt to run for a third term, and attribute his failure to their own popular pressure.
Zambian opposition leaders are eager to capitalise on the MMD’s unpopularity, but in Zambian politics, the presidency has become the only prize worth having and so, despite ongoing talks between the parties, agreement is unlikely on a united opposition presidential candidate.
At least five prominent opposition politicians will contest the presidential poll as well as Tembo, giving Mwanawasa a good chance of winning even if he wins only a minority of votes.
Another MMD advantage is its access to Zambian state resources during the election. These include partisan state media outlets, maize that can be distributed on credit to voters, presidentially appointed district administrators to organise MMD rallies, and vehicles for campaigning in rural areas.
Meanwhile, Zambians’ confidence in the ability of the electoral process to improve their lives is at its lowest ebb ever, and only 2,5-million of a voting-aged population of nearly five million have bothered to register. Voter turnout is predicted to be worse still, and MMD officials privately expect this to benefit the party at the polls.
In his independence day speech on Wednesday, and in a speech the night before, during which he extolled his government’s performance since coming to power in 1991, Chiluba brimmed with confidence at the MMD’s electoral chances. Despite his and his party’s unpopularity, and Mwanawasa’s weakness as its candidate, unless the opposition parties fall behind Tembo, Chiluba has good reason to be confident.