Political Alliances: A New Challenge for Zambia?

Undoubtedly, Zambia will be heading to the polls on August 11th, 2016 as an established constitutional obligation of its approximately Seven million eligible voters. Following the enactment of some clauses in the constitution such as the fifty percent plus one for a majoritarian and running mate and subsequent enactment of the document, there has been a lot of movements on the local political landscape, as different political players are busy attempting to create, formalize and consolidate their unions with various stakeholders. However, the issue of alliances in this country is not knew having witnessed the establishment of several of these arrangements that failed terribly to succeed. Firstly, as a people we need to appreciate the fact that many of our existing political parties are empty shells and have nothing to offer thus leading to the failure of these alliances to succeed. Accordingly, the alliances have a lot of hidden agendas, which no one is ready to open up and discuss with all the stakeholders. Most of the decisions are top- bottom-rocked rather than grassroots. For stance look at the rocket speed at which the Movement for Multi-party Democracy (MMD) has responded to the call and request by the ruling Patriotic Front (PF) leader, Edgar Lungu to partner and form an alliance. Firstly, the former ruling has not yet resolved its challenges with some senior members of the party and the grassroots. A thorough consultative process has not been concluded for the party President, Dr. Nevers Mumba to quickly rush and claim that it is ready to forge an alliance. This could prove costly to the MMD especially that the PF is now larger and could easily swallow the latter if no proper mechanisms are put in place to ensure that both parties still remain as separate entities. President Edgar Lungu is proving to be a shrewd politician and he is well aware of his needs from the much-anticipated alliance. He has a well-defined agenda compared to the excited MMD, who have been subjected to all kinds of misery and ills and an opportunity to return to government will surely be received with both hands. Besides, many MMD members of Parliament have already been serving in the administration of Edgar Lungu since his ascendancy to power surely this could only be an opportunity of icing the cake for both parties. The biggest challenge nevertheless, for both parties is to harmonize party policies and the grassroots structures that have seemingly not have been consulted yet in formalizing the pact, the sure way of securing another victory for President, Lungu, who has barely been in office for a year punctuated with numerous challenges such, high cost of living, load-shedding but having done so well in infrastructure development. The biggest threat that the PF/MMD possess is that the former ruling party is well assured of extinction or political oblivion in that the party has been so fragile in recent times especially during the last presidential elections, in which several members of the party formed different alliances with different political parties such as the Rupiah Banda/Edgar Lungu alliance, Members of Parliament/UPND Alliance and finally Nevers Mumba equally participating in the polls. So this could be a question of if you cannot beat them, join them? And Rupiah Banda is the biggest winner in the question having opportunely worked with them earlier in the last elections. That be as it may, while past alliances have failed, the emerging alliances brought about due to the amendments to the constitution like the proposed PF/MMD alliance may be a marriage of convience but is bound to produce something more tangible. It cannot be disputed that since the 1991 elections that ushered in late President Fredrick Chiluba, subsequent elections have failed to produce a majoritarian President.Political analyst predict that even the the forthcoming August 11 elections will not be able to produce an outright winner at the first ballot.Furthermore, there has never been guarantee that an alliance will win outrightly, as evidenced from past elections. This will in turn mean a re-run will culminate in to further alliances in a bid to pro-pup the drop out political parties prefered candidates. Therefore the emerging alliances coming due to a change in the constitution are a matter of neccessitity than just convenience. The end result is that the country's blotted political parties will begin to dwindle and like it is being feared the MMD/PF alliance may go on especially after the elections see the formation of a new party to suit the changing times going forward. Therefore if alliances failed to work in the past, it cannot go that even this time around they will fail, the dynamics have changed.Kudos must be given to the PF and President Edgar Lungu for initiating the alliance with PF. Equally MMD's Nevers Mumba and his NEC must be praised for reading the situation and changing times early enough, the two parties must now sit down and address the intricacies of the alliance and put it behind them to face the coming elections as a united front, it will not be easy, but if both camps put the interest of the country face the rest will fall in to place, what they have done so far is a huge step, to initiate the process. I can even predict that even FDD leader Edith Nawakwi may be scoffing at the idea of alliance but sooner rather than later she will go in to an alliance or something in those lines. Watch the space.........