Zambia’s Kenneth Kaunda, a liberation hero who ruled for decades, is supposed to be living in quiet retirement — offering a good, if somewhat rare, example of an African president fading gently into the twilight.
But as Zambia gears up for presidential polls on September 28, the 82-year-old has emerged as an unexpected powerbroker in the Southern African country, a development which has set many political analysts on edge.
A grandfatherly figure known as ”Super Ken”, Kaunda has been propelled back onto the political stage partly through his son, who heads a party which could end up with a swing vote if the hard-fought poll results in a coalition government.
Kenneth Kaunda has urged Zambians to back a little-known candidate backed by his son’s party, a choice that could favour such an outcome.
This has sparked sharp denunciations from President Levy Mwanawasa, who is running for a second and final term, and his main challenger, Michael Sata.
Analysts are divided on the influence Kaunda is likely to have ahead of the vote but agree that his backing could produce more votes for businessman Hakainde Hichilema and saddle mineral-rich Zambia with a weak coalition government.
Some Zambian politicians have been scathing about what they see as Kaunda’s motivation.
”We know that Kaunda wants one of his sons to rule Zambia one day. If Hichilema wins the elections then his son would be vice-president, but please ignore him,” Sylvia Masebo, a former health minister and close Mwanawasa ally, told a campaign rally.
Blast from the past
Kaunda’s own political career ended in 1991, when he was ousted by trade union leader Frederick Chiluba in the country’s first multiparty elections.
Kaunda ruled Zambia for 27 years after leading it to independence from Britain in 1964, placing him among the first rank of African liberation heroes including Tanzania’s Julius Nyerere, Kenya’s Jomo Kenyatta and Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah.
Multiparty politics were banned in 1972 — a picture of a frog was printed on ballot papers as Kaunda’s challenger from 1972 until 1991. Critics were imprisoned and key assets such as copper mines were nationalised.
As the economy declined, poverty levels rose sharply, igniting bloody protests in 1985 which left dozens dead.
Critics say Kaunda created a personality cult and was widely feared until Chiluba and his close allies started to agitate for political change, which brought Zambia back to multiparty politics in 1991.
Kaunda has accused Mwanawasa of failing to eradicate poverty, which affects more than two-thirds of Zambia’s 10-million people despite economic policies which have earned Mwanawasa praise from the International Monetary Fund and other Western donors.
Opposition parties have echoed these complaints. High unemployment, widespread poverty and higher taxes have forced Mwanawasa on the defensive at campaign rallies.
Sata — the leader of the Patriotic Front (PF) who has made headlines by attacking Chinese and Indian investment — has been dismissed by Kaunda as ”simply not presidential material”.
Hichilema is standing for the United Democratic Alliance (UDA), a coalition formed with the former ruling UNIP party headed by Kaunda’s son Tilyenji and another group. Public opinion polls show the businessman running third behind Mwanawasa and current favourite Sata.
Kaunda’s statements have drawn threats from government officials that he could lose his pension and various perks still accorded to him as a former president.
But he is undeterred. ”I am a free man and no one can stop me from expressing my views,” he said recently.
Some analysts say Kaunda’s support for Hichilema may be driven by a desire to solidify his own political legacy, much of which has evaporated as Zambia embraced democracy and a market economy.
Hichilema has pledged to resurrect Kaunda-era institutions such as farmers’ cooperatives, which were dropped at the instigation of the IMF, and to broaden free education.
”We all appreciate some of Kaunda’s policies such as free education and this might help Hichilema’s cause,” said Bennett Siamwiza, a historian at the University of Zambia. – Reuters