Zambia and Its Suitors

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Zambia and Its Suitors

By Gado Zambia’s presidential election was expected to be a tight two-horse race between President and perennial opposition candidate . But early results suggest something very different. With 62 constituencies officially declared by the Electoral Commission of Zambia, Hichilema is on 63% of the vote with a vast lead of 28% over Lungu, who is trailing on 34.6%.

Economic desperation and growing distrust of President Lungu has led to a nationwide swing towards Hichilema’s of National Development – which has increased its vote share in all the vast majority constituencies released so far.

Amid growing desperation within the ruling party, President Lungu has taken inspiration from an unlikely source – former US President Donald Trump. Despite enjoying all of the vast powers of incumbency that mean that presidents in Africa win 88% of the elections they contest, Lungu and his lieutenants are complaining that the elections were rigged against them.

In a statement released on Saturday 14 August, Lungu went so far as to say that the presidential election was “unfree and unfair” and should therefore be nullified.

President Lungu’s statement of 14th August 2021

This is not a strategy that has been cooked up overnight – anticipating a tough election, the government has been laying the foundation for this strategy for weeks. It has three main components: 1) exaggerating the violence committed by opposition parties, 2) pretending that the police cannot cope with the level of unrest, 3) claiming that this violence only occurred in opposition strongholds and so the vote in these areas is particularly suspect.

This strategy has little credibility, which is precisely why it is so divisive – and has the potential to push Zambia into the biggest political crisis in its 30-year multiparty history.

The state of play

Lungu’s strategy is born of desperation.

While only two-thirds (40%) of constituency results have been released, it already looks like Hichilema’s lead is unassailable. What is more, he also has a comfortable gap to the 50%+1 of the vote he needs to win in the first round of voting. An early hope for the government was that support for Hichilema would be largely confined to his traditional strongholds, with a small increase in county’s more populous and cosmopolitan regions such as Lusaka and the Copperbelt.

But this hope was quickly dashed on voting day when large turnout across the country suggested that Zambians has decided that Lungu’s time was up. As those standing in long queues in Lusaka compounds told us “we are all here to vote for change” and “you don’t turn up so early to support the incumbent.”

These early predictions were soon proved right by the – painfully slow – official release of the results by the ECZ. Hichilema has already built a big lead on the Copperbelt (56%) and Lusaka (61%), which account for 31% of all registered voters. There was even bad news for President Lungu in his supposed “heartlands”. In Eastern Province, for example, Lungu is currently on 54%. This sounds like a decent performance until you realise that he secured 79% of the vote in this region in 2016 – a fall of some 25% in just five years.

With a string of minor candidates queuing up to concede defeat – and either congratulate Hichilema or reference support for a transfer of power in their speeches – the writing is on the wall. Moreover, both the UPND’s own vote count based on party members, and the official Parallel Vote Tabulation (PVT) carried out by domestic monitor group CCMG are widely expected to “confirm” a first round victory for the opposition candidate.

The Trump card

Where the margin of votes between rival candidates is small, last minute rigging can help leaders get over the line. It is already clear, however, that this will not be the case in Zambia in 2021. Lungu appears on course to lose by a bigger margin than President in 2011, and the UPND seems to be much better placed to detect foul play.

Already, representatives from a number of opposition parties intervened to prevent the ECZ from releasing results for that did not match the figures they had received from their own teams. After a delay, ECZ announced figures that the opposition party agreed with. If this trend continues, there will be no chance for the government to fiddle its way back into power.

Lungu has therefore decided to pursue a very different strategy: following the example of Unites States President Donald Trump, he has attempted to turn defence into attack by alleging that the elections were actually rigged by his rival. This isn’t something the Patriotic Front simply cooked-up on voting day – instead, having watched Trump carefully, they began laying the foundation weeks in advance. Doing so is critical to make subsequent claims seem more credible, and to prime supporters to be on the look out for certain “developments” to ensure that later misinformation is interpreted in the desired way.

In President Lungu’s case, this plan has had three main components:

1) exaggerating the violence committed by opposition parties

Ahead of the polls, President Lungu and state-aligned media consistently exaggerated violence committed by the UPND in an attempt to create the impression that political unrest and clashes between rival cadres were the fault of the opposition.

This was a smart ploy. Civil society groups, international donors and the world’s media are often tempted to accept a degree of repression in order to sustain peace and order, such is the concern about the economic and human impact of conflict in Africa. As recent research has explained, campaigns to promote peace have regularly been subverted to repress critical voices, replacing democracy with peaceocracy.

The problem for Lungu was that it was fairly transparent: while it is clear that cadres affiliated with both sides have committed violence, the post-election statement of the CCMG domestic monitoring group reports that twice as much violence was instigated by individuals affiliated to the PF as by those aligned to the UPND.

2) pretending that the police cannot cope with the level of unrest

In line with this approach, the government sought to manipulate political unrest in order to secure a tighter grip on the political process. Most notably, a sad incident in which two individuals – who PF has claimed as its supporters, although the UPND suggests that one actually was an opposition cadre – was used as a pretext to deploy the military to the streets.

This was an unprecedented move, and caused considerable concern among opposition leaders – especially when it became clear that the military were not only being sent to “hot spots” but also to areas in which there had been no significant violence.

One of the justifications that the president used to deploy this strategy was that the police had been overwhelmed. This was also unpersuasive, however, as the growing politicization of the police under Lungu’s leadership, and the fact that the police have predominantly intervened to arrest opposition cadres and not ruling party ones, suggests that the rise in electoral violence was largely a product deliberately engineered by the regime itself.

3) claiming that this violence only occurred in opposition strongholds and so the vote in these areas is particularly suspect.

Despite being in full control of the police and army – with a police officer in every polling station and the military now deployed across the country – the ruling party has responded to its dismal electoral showing by claiming that its voters were intimidated.

In an initial statement released on 12 August, the government claimed that the level of opposition intimidation meant that the vote in its regions could not be considered free and fair. The implication seemed to be that the elections should be cancelled in opposition areas, while the results in government strongholds should be retained.

A subsequent statement on 14 August made a bolder claim, with the headline: “President Lungu Declares General Election Not Free and Fair”. The second iteration of the complaint – which followed a complaint made to the ECZ leaders at Mulungushi, where the votes are being verified and announced – suggested that a key problem was that “PF party agents had been chased out of polling stations”.

These claims rested heavily on one incident – a tragedy in which PF North Western Province Chairman Jackson Kungo was killed by a mob that suspected him of bringing pre-marked ballot papers into a polling station. Kungo’s killing was deeply saddening, and was rightly condemned by all sides. But there is no evidence that it was part of a wider pattern.

Instead, CCMG domestic monitors found that PF party agents were present in 98% of polling stations, and a growing number of legal organisations including the Law Association of Zambia, observers, and civil society groups, have lined up to publicly doubt Lungu’s claims. Perhaps most significantly, six of the most prominent minor candidates came together to say that if anyone had tried to rig the election it was him, and that he should stand down.

Six presidential candidates write to President Lungu https://t.co/VTXEuwHWyw

— The Zambian Observer (@ZambianObserver) August 14, 2021

For its part, UPND leaders have pointed out that there were also incidents of violence against its leaders and supporters on polling day, but they have tended to receive less attention because they were not amplified by state media.

Can it work?

Donald Trump was forced to stand down as US President, but not before he had done inordinate harm to the country’s political system. Not only did Trump intensify the fault lines at the heart of US politics, but the attack on the US Capitol represented one of the most shocking and dangerous moments in the country’s history.

Ultimately, he was forced to stand down due to the fact that key democratic institutions – and just as importantly the individuals within them – did their civic duty.

So what can we expect in Zambia?

The country’s democratic institutions have also been weakened by thoroughgoing politicisation and the use of appointments to promote figures loyal to President Lungu himself. But there are already signs that despite this, he will likely not get his way.

Many in the military are also understood to be unhappy about the idea of being deployed for political purposes, and so the president may not be confident that soldiers ordered to repress protestors will carry out the instruction. Meanwhile a judge of the High Court also issued an injunction against the blocking of social media platforms – a critical source of communication for both democratic activists and normal citizens – after a case was brought by the Chapter One Foundation. As a result, WhatsApp, Twitter and Facebook have been turned back on, at least for now. Chapter One Foundation petition

In both cases, the extent of public support for Hichilema – which has been trickling out, despite the delays by ECZ – is likely to have been critical. Soldiers and judges are also members of Zambian society and will want to be able to hold their heads up high if Lungu is forced out of State House.

Given this, it critically important that the ECZ continues to release results. Although the slow rate of progress has frustrated many and left many across the country anxious and fearful, the Commission has now released three batches of results that are clearly good news for Hichilema and bad for the President. We believe this demonstrates considerable independence. The ECZ’s continued announcement of results so far, despite the PF’s complaints, suggests that the ECZ is unlikely to yield to pressure from President.

Indeed, some analysts believe that it has been an inability to effectively infiltrate and control the ECZ that has led the president to make inflammatory public statements in a bid to intimidate the Commission into submission. Electoral commissions and officials therefore deserve strong and unequivocal support and encouragement from everyone who cares about the future of Zambia

If they continue to release results as they have been, the pressure on Lungu to stand down may soon become insurmountable.

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This article was first published by Democracy in Africa.

Published by the good folks at The Elephant.

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Zambia and Its Suitors

By Gado Zambia’s inaugural president, , died on June 17, 2021, at the age of 97. From the early 1950s onwards, he led a nonviolent liberation struggle against British rule, eventually forging independence in 1964. In power for the first twenty-seven years of Zambia’s independent statehood, Kaunda leaves a controversial legacy. He abandoned multiparty elections in 1973, ruled as an authoritarian leader for the next eighteen years, and was the architect of disastrous economic policies that compounded the already significant levels of poverty in the country. However, Kaunda should also be remembered as a leader who was instrumental in guiding Zambia through its formative years, doing so in the absence of the wars or mass atrocities that blighted many of its neighbors.

Kaunda’s role in steering his country away from instability and mass violence—especially in the first decade of independence—is particularly noteworthy given the challenges at the time. His own stamp on state building helped to navigate these tensions: he shaped a new national identity that transcended ethnic or tribal affiliations, neither favoring nor scapegoating any group. Kaunda was acutely aware that the new state—with its borders artificially and arbitrarily constructed by its former colonial occupiers—was in peril of fragmenting through power struggles along tribal and ethnic lines. Referring to the dominant language groups, he reiterated the gravity of this new national identity in his 1967 memoir: “with any luck,” he wrote, “this generation will think of itself not in tribal terms as Bemba, Lozi or Tonga, but as Zambians. This is the only guarantee of future stability.” Kaunda thus seemed to be keenly aware that ideology can act as a catalyst as well as one of the most important restraints on mass atrocities; his humanist perspective fostered the latter while other leaders in the region chose the former.

Kaunda backed this principled stance with action during the first decade of independence, when his governing party, the United National Independence Party, began to fragment into factions based on ethnolinguistic differences. Kaunda frequently shuffled ministerial portfolios between factions and often changed personnel in all departments of the public sector—all in an effort to prevent the possibility of ethnolinguistic differences and tensions becoming formally entrenched within the new state. Throughout the 1960s, this constant reshuffling was effective in maintaining a power balance between the country’s different groups; but by the end of the decade, escalating tensions between these factions led to some forming breakaway parties on the basis of ethnolinguistic differences. This prompted Kaunda to centralize power and ban opposition political parties, forging a regime that was increasingly intolerant of opposition voices. Zambia, however, avoided the large-scale violence that some of its neighbors experienced. Although populations in dictatorial regimes are more at risk for mass atrocities than populations in democracies, Kaunda’s decision to centralize power and prohibit opposition parties was motivated—at least in part—by a desire to avoid the formal entrenchment of Zambia’s ethnolinguistic tensions.

In making this decision, however, Kaunda provoked a whole new set of challenges as an authoritarian leader. It wasn’t until 1991 that he lifted the ban on opposition parties, ushering in a transition toward a new phase of democratization. This was done under duress in the context of long-term economic decline, IMF-imposed economic reforms, and increasing dissatisfaction with his regime. Yet even this transition was largely restrained. The opposition movement itself (the Movement for Multiparty Democracy, or MMD) was a broad coalition that embodied Kaunda’s own vision of a Zambia that transcended ethnic and tribal difference. When the MMD registered as a political party and won the 1991 election, Kaunda conceded defeat and transferred power without contestation. While so many other authoritarian leaders opted for a violent response to the contestation of their power, Kaunda chose not to cling to power at all costs.

Even during Zambia’s phase of one-party rule from 1973 to 1991, Kaunda’s legacy of state building stands in contrast to the violent exclusionary tendencies of many regimes in the region. Although he centralized power, this was in part a response to a belief—shared by many leaders across the African continent in the 1960s and 1970s—that multiparty elections were divisive. So while research has shown repeatedly that established democracies tend to be safer for their inhabitants than democratizing or dictatorial countries, Kaunda actually seems to have used his dictatorial rule to steer the country away from the preconditions of mass violence.

Kaunda was able to shape the nation’s identity because dictatorial leaders, through their sway over the dominant narrative of their societies, can be particularly influential and shape how a population may think or act. The way in which Kaunda chose to do so was, however, extraordinary. Oftentimes, dictatorial regimes will use a destructive and exclusionary ideology, as it is through the definition of the “other” that the in-group can be defined and united. Creating such a cohesive in-group can have positive effects for leaders who tend to be more respected, but it can also enhance schisms and cause polarization or, even dehumanization, which can be conducive to massive violence. Populations are particularly likely to turn to leaders with such destructive ideologies when their life conditions are difficult; as people look for ways to understand their reality and search for someone to blame. Kaunda’s feat of uniting the nation, without exploiting ethno-linguistic tensions, is, therefore, even more noteworthy given the real and many risks for identity-based divisions to become entrenched in the first three decades of independence. Though far from perfect, Kaunda’s repeated call of “One Zambia, One Nation” resonated strongly, and established a precedent of stability and inclusion when so many other post-colonial African states went down more violent and exclusionary paths.

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This post is from a partnership between Africa Is a Country and The Elephant. We will be publishing a series of posts from their site once a week.

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Zambia and Its Suitors

By Gado

This piece was originally published in the Financial Times and is republished in the Elephant with the express permission of the author.

Kenneth Kaunda, Zambia’s founding president who has died aged 97, was a towering figure of African nationalism and the anti-colonial independence movement that swept the continent in the 20th century. For his 25 years in office he fought , yet was more a victim of southern Africa’s white minority regimes than an instrument of their collapse.

After taking office at independence in 1964, Kaunda banned all political parties except his United National Independence party in 1972. In 1991 he reluctantly conceded multi-party elections, in which he was soundly defeated. Nonetheless, Kaunda ruled Zambia with a rare benevolence in an era of dictatorships and systematic abuse of human rights. His Christian faith, together with socialist values, was at the heart of his doctrine of “Zambian humanism”.

At home, his policies were little short of disastrous economically. Zambia’s all-important copper mines were nationalised shortly before a fall in the commodity’s price, while industries were taken over by an administration short of managers — the country had only a dozen university graduates at independence in 1964 — and newly created state-owned farms proved a failure.

Abroad, his influence never quite matched his rhetoric. He denounced white rule but was inhibited by landlocked Zambia’s dependence on trade through neighbouring and apartheid . Closure of the border with Rhodesia left his country dependent on a road to the Tanzanian port of Dar es Salaam for its fuel imports. A Chinese-built rail link opened in 1975, but the line never met its potential.

Born at Lubwa Mission on April 28 1924 in what was then , Kenneth David Kaunda was the eighth child of teacher parents. After secondary school he too became a teacher, but in 1949 he gave up teaching to enter politics. By 1953 he was secretary-general of the country’s African National Congress party. Impatient and ambitious, he formed his own party in 1958, which was banned a year later.

In 1960 he took over the leadership of the United National Independence party. It swept to victory in the independence election of 1964, ending Zambia’s legal status as a British protectorate. Almost immediately, Kaunda was confronted by the white Rhodesian rebels’ unilateral declaration of independence on November 11 1965.

For the next 15 years his political life was dominated by the Rhodesian bush war, which spilled over into Zambia. He provided a base not only for Joshua Nkomo’s African People’s Union but South Africa’s own African National Congress, ’s South West Africa People’s Organisation, the FNLA of and Frelimo from .

His frequent tearful warnings of regional cataclysm, invariably delivered while holding a freshly ironed white handkerchief, were heartfelt but ineffectual.

Historical and geographical realities left him with a weak hand.

His decision to keep the border with Rhodesia closed hurt Zambia far more than it did his neighbour, and its eventual reopening in 1973 was a humiliating climbdown. A meeting with John Vorster, prime minister of apartheid South Africa in 1975, achieved little, while his secret talks with , Rhodesia’s white minority leader, served only to sour relations with Nkomo’s rival, , who was to win the elections for an independent Zimbabwe in 1980.

Pro-independence events had also left Kaunda at a serious disadvantage. The huge Kariba hydroelectric dam was built on the Zambezi river that formed the boundary with Rhodesia. Its generator was on the south bank, leaving the latter in control of power supplies to Zambia’s copper mines.

Perhaps his finest hour came when he hosted the 1979 Commonwealth conference that helped pave the way to Rhodesia’s transition to an independent Zimbabwe. The highlight was a beaming Kaunda leading Margaret Thatcher around the dance floor.

Trade union-led pressure for an end to the country’s one-party system eventually became irresistible, and in 1991 he conceded to demands for the multi-party poll that led to his ousting.

One of his last public appearances was at the funeral of , where he attempted to get the crowd of mourners to join him in a rendition of “Tiyende Pamodzi” (let us pull together), a rousing Unip anthem sung at Unip rallies.

The response was an uncomprehending silence. Kaunda had become disconnected from the Africa that he, Mandela and others had worked to shape.

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This piece was originally published in the Financial Times and is republished in the Elephant with the express permission of the author.

Published by the good folks at The Elephant.

The Elephant is a platform for engaging citizens to reflect, re-member and re-envision their society by interrogating the past, the present, to fashion a future.

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Zambia and Its Suitors

By Gado Ten years ago, I was sitting together with other invited guests during the Republic of South Sudan independence celebrations on the day that South Sudan was declared a free nation, when I saw an elderly man with a white handkerchief in his hand, walking slowly towards the podium. The independence celebrations were already underway and the podium was crowded with African heads of states. The stadium was quiet, possibly because everyone was puzzled that this elderly man was walking towards the stage when everyone was already seated. When the master of ceremonies announced that the man was Kenneth David Kaunda the venue buzzed with excitement.

Everyone on the main podium where the heads of states and prime ministers were seated stood up and clapped until Mzee Kaunda was seated. Many of those seating near me were wondering how Kaunda had entered the stadium while all the presidents, including the host president, had already arrived. Foreign affairs officials of the United Republic of later explained to me that Mzee was late because his flight had been delayed. The reception he received at the stadium showed the esteem with which the elders who started and led the struggle for freedom were held even in their retirement years. It was a big honour for the Republic of South Sudan that the former and the second Chairman of the Frontline States was present on the day the country became independent.

A few months later, around March 2012, I was lucky to meet Mzee Kaunda. I was in Lusaka on parliamentary business and I requested that the Zambian parliament afford me the opportunity to pay him a visit. Mzee Kaunda received me warmly in his office and we spoke about a number of African issues. The conversation was essentially Kaunda answering my questions about African liberation movements. I remember that as you enter his office, there is a photo of Mzee Kaunda, Mwalimu and Mzee Jomo Kenyatta taken at the airport in Nairobi as they wait for their flight to the United Kingdom.

This was before their countries became fully independent; it was the time of self-government, when both Kaunda and Kenyatta were Prime Ministers. Tanganyika had already obtained full independence, although this was prior to the formation of the United Republic of Tanzania. I asked Mzee Kaunda if he could remember when that photo was taken and he said that it was in January 1964. They were young, smart individuals who possessed a lot of self-confidence. Mzee Kaunda explained to me how at the time, Africa had a lot of hope and he spoke of his very close relationship with Mwalimu Nyerere and even with Mzee Kenyatta, although their politics were not very similar. All three are now no longer with us. Mzee Kenneth David Kaunda passed away on Thursday 17th June 2021 in Lusaka, Zambia.

Kenneth Kaunda, popularly known as KK, was the only surviving founding president of an independent African state. But he was not a founding president of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU). Zambia was not an independent state when the OAU was formed on the 25th of May 1963 and neither Kaunda nor Jomo Kenyatta were amongst the leaders who signed the OAU Charter. Zambia joined the OAU on the 26th of February 1965. It is however easy to assume that KK was a founder of the OAU as he was at the forefront of the independence struggle in Africa and because Zambia gained independence shortly after the OAU was formed. KK believed strongly in the OAU and took part in almost all its meetings. He became the Chairman of the OAU in 1970 at the 7th meeting of Heads of States in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

As Zambia gained its independence, Mozambique and Angola were engaged in the struggle for independence from Portuguese colonial power, while South Africa and Namibia were fighting the white supremacist apartheid regime. And although Zambia was surrounded by countries that had already gained their independence — Zaire (now Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)) and Malawi — it only had close relations with Tanzania and . Under Kamuzu Banda, Malawi had close relations with Apartheid South Africa while Zaire was used by Western nations against liberation movements. Zambia was going through trying times. Being a landlocked country, the country could either transport goods through the ports of Beira and Nacala in Mozambique, which was under Portuguese rule, or through Southern Rhodesia (present-day Zimbabwe), which was under Ian Smith’s settler rule. This is where Kaunda’s leadership underwent trying times – to protect his country’s interests by cooperating with the apartheid regime or to support the struggle for freedom from colonialism in Africa. Kaunda chose the latter option at a very high cost.

Kenneth Kaunda, popularly known as KK, was the only surviving founding president of an independent African state.

President Kaunda started the Mulungushi Club together with President Nyerere and President Milton Obote of Uganda whose aim was national reconstruction. Unfortunately, President Obote was overthrown by Idi Amin in 1971, leaving only Kaunda and Nyerere. They invited President Seretse Khama of Botswana to one of their meetings, during which, for the first time, the name Frontline States was used. That first meeting was held in Lusaka, Zambia and Mwalimu Julius Nyerere was the first chairman of the Frontline States, contrary to custom which dictates that the president of the host state should be chairman. Mark Chona, special assistant to President Kaunda, has documented in the Hashim Mbita Project – Southern African Liberation Struggles Contemporaneous Documents 1960 – 1994 how Nyerere became chairman:

It was on the issue of releasing from prison the Zimbabwean freedom fighters, the first meeting was in October when I was sent to Cape Town and KK wanted to give a recap to President Nyerere and President Khama. Once seated Mwalimu said “oh! Kenneth, you are the host. I request that you should be the chairman” and KK said “No, Mwalimu please chair the meeting, I am only a host.” At the second meeting, Mwalimu again requested that Kaunda should be the chairman and again Kaunda said “No, no, you spoke very well at the first meeting, please continue to chair the meetings” and that is how Mwalimu Nyerere carried on as the Chairman of Frontline states until 1985 the end of his presidency in Tanzania. That is Mzee Kaunda then became Chairman and he continued with this role until he lost the election in Zambia in 1991.

President Kaunda is essentially remembered for his role in African liberation. In his time, Zambia served liberation movements, resolving disputes within the movements, providing financial assistance and preparing them to run their countries. Zambia came under military attack from Ian Smith’s Rhodesia and Apartheid South Africa and was even threatened with nuclear bombing by the Apartheid regime. In order to stop Zambia from being dependent on the ports in Mozambique and South Africa, President Kaunda and President Nyerere decided to seek assistance from China to build the TAZARA railway. At one point, Zambia also started efforts to develop a nuclear bomb to be used against South Africa.

Members of the Frontline States increased to six when Angola, Mozambique and Zimbabwe gained independence. The biggest task remaining was to liberate Namibia and South Africa, both of which became independent in 1991 and 1994, respectively. Mzee Kenneth Kaunda was at the forefront in ensuring the success of the liberation struggle, during which many lives were lost.

Kenneth Kaunda’s power handover was a big lesson on democracy for Africa when he conceded defeat in an election and handed over the presidency to in 1991.

Kenneth Kaunda also made decisions that either brought misunderstandings between him and his fellow leaders of the Frontline States, or convinced them to take positions that were contrary to those of the OAU. Three issues will be remembered the most. The first was recognising the secession of Biafra from the Federal State of Nigeria. This decision, which was made by only four countries in Africa – Zambia, Gabon, Ivory Coast and Tanzania – caused a lot of misunderstanding among African heads of states. Tanzania recognised the Republic of Biafra on the 13th of April 1968 and Zambia did the same a month later on the 20th May 1968. I was told by a former ambassador from Tanzania who had attended the 5th OAU general meeting which took place in September 1968 in Algiers, Algeria, where the issue of Biafra was discussed, that President Kaunda was verbally attacked by his fellow presidents to the point that he had to leave the meeting. His friend Mwalimu Nyerere did not attend the meeting but sent his friend Rashidi Kawawa instead. KK continued to believe in Biafra for a long time and in November 2011 he attended the funeral of Lt. Colonel Odumegwu Ojukwu, who had been the leader of secessionist Biafra.

The second issue was recognising Angola’s independence. Angola obtained independence from Portugal in 1975 following years of armed struggle. The 1975 military coup in Portugal opened the way for independence talks that were led by Zambia. As none of the country’s three liberation movements — the MPLA led by Augustino Neto, União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola (UNITA) led by Jonas Savimbi and Frente Nacional de Libertação de Angola (FLNA) led by Holden Roberto — had control over Luanda, the OAU intervened and a vote was organised to decide which of the three parties would take over from Portugal.

The results of the vote did not produce an outright winner and OAU member states were very divided on this. At a meeting of African heads of state in Addis Ababa, President Kaunda gave a speech that showed his support for UNITA which really angered Mwalimu Nyerere and the Tanzanian delegation. Mwalimu Nyerere therefore decided against giving his speech and instead only said a few words in response to the president of Senegal.

Journalist and lawyer Jenerali Ulimwengu, who was in Addis Ababa as the Deputy Chairman of the Pan-African Youth Movement, told me that the situation had been very tense. The MPLA decided to enter Luanda and declare independence after Portugal surrendered the instruments of power. Jenerali, who was present in Luanda on independence day, will not forget that day; as Tanzania was seen as not principled despite sending the Vice PresidentAboud Jumbe to the celebrations. The issue of Mzee Kaunda, Jonas Savimbi and UNITA is an issue that has still not been understood.

The third issue is one that concerns Zambia. President Kaunda was severely punished by the settler government of Rhodesia and the apartheid regime of South Africa, to the point that Zambia’s economy completely collapsed. Kaunda had closed the border with Smith’s Rhodesia but TAZARA was unable to transport goods into Zambia. The people of Zambia blamed him for his politics of assisting liberation movements instead of focusing on Zambia’s interests. Contrary to his agreement with his fellow leaders, and contrary to his promise that he “would not open the border until Zimbabwe gained independence”, KK decided to open the border with Zimbabwe. In the meeting of the Frontline States a big dispute arose between Presidents Machel, Neto, Kaunda and Nyerere. Mzee Joseph Butiku, who was then Nyerere’s Chief of Staff, has said that it was one of the most difficult meetings he attended during his time with Mwalimu Nyerere. Butiku states that “in the middle of the meeting leaders began to cry. Our role as assistants is to make a record of the conversations, I simply wrote that ‘the presidents are weeping!’”. Zambia was eventually allowed to carry on with its plans. A similar thing happened to President Machel in 1984 following the Nkomati Accord with the Apartheid regime of South Africa and this led to Nyerere “chasing him away” when he went to give him a recap.

Zambia came under military attack from Ian Smith’s Rhodesia and Apartheid South Africa and was even threatened with nuclear bombing by the Apartheid regime.

Kenneth Kaunda’s power handover was a big lesson on democracy for Africa when he conceded defeat in an election and handed over the presidency to Frederick Chiluba in 1991. Kaunda was a president who was very modest to the point that by the time he relinquished the presidency, he did not own a house. When Chiluba took over, he gave Kaunda a hard time, going to the extent of imprisoning him for treason. Mzee Kaunda went on a hunger strike while in jail which he only ended when Mwalimu Nyerere visited him. Dr Levy Patrick Mwanawasa, the third president of Zambia, returned KK to the status of Father of the Nation, giving him all his dues as a retired president, which he continued to receive until his death.

In Development as Rebellion: Julius Nyerere A Biography, Prof Issa Shivji, Prof Saida Yahya-Othman and Dr Ng’wanza Kamata explain how shocked President Kaunda was by the terrible condition of the road to Butiama (Nyerere’s home village). He came to the conclusion that the driver had gone the wrong way as it was not possible that the road to the president’s house could be in such a terrible condition. But it is more shocking that President Kaunda did not have his own home when his presidency ended as he had served his country and never thought of himself. Without a doubt, the first generation of African leaders was unique and I do not think that Africa will get leaders of Kenneth Kaunda’s calibre again. May God rest his soul in peace.

Hamba Kahle KK. You are the last to depart. Greetings to Nyerere, Bibi Titi, Samora, Josina, Winnie, Mandela, OR Tambo, Lumumba, Neto, Mondlane, Hani, Chipeto, Marcelino and all the others who gave their blood and sweat to liberate us.

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Zambia and Its Suitors

By Gado

17 June 2021

Tonight, I was welcomed in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, by the sad news of the death of the first President of the Republic of Zambia and a founding father of the nation, His Excellency Dr. Kenneth Kaunda.

In this moment of great loss to Zambians and indeed all Africans, I wish to express my heartfelt condolences to the Kaunda family, President Edgar Lungu, and the government and people of the Republic of Zambia. The demise of President Kaunda at the grand old age of 97 years brings to end the pioneers and forefathers who led the struggles for decolonisation of the African continent and received the instrument of Independence from the colonial masters in Africa.

Let all Africans and friends of Africa take solace in the knowledge that President Kaunda has gone home to a well-deserved rest and to proudly take his place beside his brothers such as Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya, Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, Habib Bourguiba of Tunisia, Léopold Sédar Senghor of Senegal, Nnamdi Azikiwe of Nigeria, Ahmed Sékou Touré of Guinea, Félix Houphouët-Boigny of Côte d’Ivoire, Patrice Lumumba of Congo, Nelson Mandela of South Africa to name but a few.

All of them, without exception, were nationalists who made sacrifices in diverse ways. Some, like Patrice Lumumba, untimely lost their lives soon after independence. We are consoled that God granted President Kaunda long life to witness the progression of Africa through five decades of proud and not-so proud moments.

In December 2015, I visited President Kaunda at his home in Lusaka in what was to be our last meeting. As we discussed about everything from family to politics in our two countries and indeed in Africa generally, I asked him if the Africa that we have today is the Africa for which he and his contemporaries struggled and fought. President Kaunda was visibly pained in his response and at some point he broke down and wept. It was obvious to me how disappointed he was about some of the challenges that have plagued our continent for decades since independence.

As we mourn President Kaunda, my prayer is that the death of this great African son and leader will remind us of the sacrifices that he and his contemporaries who fought for Africa’s independence made. Let it remind us of the vision that they had for Africa; their hopes and aspirations; their dream for a free, strong, united and prosperous Africa. Let us, African leaders and people, never let the labour of these heroes past be in vain.

Rest well, KK. Africa is free and will be great.

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By Gado

Not too long ago, Angola opened an embassy in Nairobi on a quite well-appointed address on Redhill Road in the diplomatic suburb of Gigiri, a road I use frequently. You couldn’t miss it. It had an outlandish gate and a black granite signboard with gold lettering. I was rather intrigued that Angola would need such a large embassy in Kenya. I have made a point of observing how much activity was going on there— very little. I passed there the other day and lo and behold, the outlandish gold lettered black granite signboard was gone, replaced by a more modest one announcing the Botswana High Commission. The Angolan foray would have cost no less than $10 million, and I would imagine that Kenya was not the only country that Angola had spread its diplomatic footprint. What has changed?

Angola has squandered the oil bonanza of the last decade. Angola is Africa’s second-biggest oil producer after Nigeria, with a daily output of 1.6 million barrels of crude and 18 million cubic metres of natural gas. There is an economic principle that windfall earnings should be saved. Angola did not save. Instead, it leveraged the oil boom to pile up debt. Angola is China’s biggest debtor in Africa, owing US$ 23 billion accounting for about a fifth of Africa’s debt to China.

If Angola had set a windfall benchmark at $50 per barrel, its nest egg for the five and a half year oil boom (April 2009 to May 2014) would have been in the order of $100 billion on crude oil alone ie. excluding natural gas. A conservative investment yielding 5 percent a year would be earning Angola $5 billion a year to invest in infrastructure or whatever else it chooses. This is how Norway got rich on oil. Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, the worlds largest, is now worth a trillion dollars. If Norway was to pay dividends from the fund to its 5.2 million citizens, each would get US$9,000 a year. There is an economic principle that windfall earnings should be saved. Angola did not save. Instead it leveraged the oil boom to pile up debt. If Angola had set a benchmark of $50 per barrel of petroleum, its windfall for the five and a half year oil boom (April 2009 to May 2014) would have been in the order of $100 billion on crude oil alone… A conservative investment yielding 5 percent a year would be earning Angola $5 billion a year to invest in infrastructure or whatever else it chooses.

They say once bitten twice shy. Not Zambia. When I was a college student eons ago, Zambia was a case study on how not to manage an economy. Zambia rode the post independence commodity boom into middle income status by the early seventies. At $600, Zambia’s income per person was one-third higher than the Sub-sahara Africa average. In Nairobi, Zambia’s heydays are represented by its well- appointed embassy property on Nyerere Road, overlooking Uhuru Park. When commodity prices receded from the late seventies, Zambia plugged its finances by borrowing – and borrowed itself into poverty. Over the next decade, Zambia’s foreign debt increased seven-fold, from one to seven billion dollars. By the mid-90s when it got HIPC (Highly Indebted Poor Countries) debt relief, average income adjusted for inflation was half of the mid-1970s level.

Zambia rode the post independence commodity boom into middle income status by the early seventies. When commodity prices receded from the late 1970s, Zambia plugged its finances by borrowing – and borrowed itself into poverty.

Copper prices surged again in the 2000s peaking in 2011 at $4.60 a pound, about the same in inflation-adjusted terms, as at the 1970s peak. In 2012, against the backdrop of retreating copper prices, Zambia debuted in the Eurobond market, borrowing $750 million. It also borrowed heavily from China. Copper prices have fallen again and Zambia is in debt distress. The eurobonds are now trading at around15 percent yield, almost three times the debut bonds 5.6 percent yield at issue. What this means is that the bonds for which investors paid $94 are now trading at $34. It means that Zambia is now effectively locked out of any more borrowing in the sovereign bond market. Will Zambia turn around its finances before the bonds are due for re-financing? Doubtful.

Zambia is only slightly less dependent on copper now than it was in the 1970s. Copper still accounts for two-thirds of exports. Zambia has no shortage of low-hanging fruit in terms of diversification options: it has plenty of idle arable land and underexploited tourism potential. Chile was once as copper dependent as Zambia. In fact, copper still accounts for half of Chile’s exports. But Chile has diversified its economy and worked its way up to being the first Latin American country to be admitted to the OECD club of rich countries. Interestingly, Chile has become a wealthy country without following the Asian Tiger holy grail of export manufacturing, but rather by diversifying to services and agricultural exports. Its other key exports are agricultural including horticulture, wine and fish, especially farmed salmon.

Chile was once as copper dependent as Zambia. Copper still accounts for half of Chile’s exports. But Chile has diversified its economy and worked its way up to being the first Latin American country to be admitted to the OECD club of rich countries. Interestingly, Chile has become a wealthy country without following the Asian Tiger holy grail of export manufacturing, but rather by diversifying to services and agricultural exports.

Historically, financial recklessness on this scale was the preserve of resource-rich African countries. But the disease has spread all over the continent. Resource-poor countries such as Ethiopia and Kenya are now just as reckless as the resource-cursed. In the past, resource-poor countries simply did not have access to the money to steal or finance megalomania. When they tried to do so by domestic borrowing and printing money, the macroeconomic feedback loop quickly kicked in and wreaked financial havoc. Moi learned this lesson. Mugabe did not. He ended up with a hyperinflation for the ages, and the demise of the Zimbabwe dollar.

There are two reasons why resource-poor countries have also caught the disease: the 2008 global financial crisis, and China.

Since the global financial crisis, which began in 2007 and properly set in the next year, the financial markets have been awash with money churned out by the US Federal Reserve and other central banks, thereby depressing interest rates to near zero, prompting money managers to go looking for better returns in emerging markets in what is known in market lingo as “hunting for yield”. Aggressive salesmen were everywhere scouting for and massaging the egos of potential borrowers. When Kenya set out to debut in the Eurobond market it indicated that it would raise a $500m “benchmarking” bond whose proceeds were to retire a syndicated bank loan borrowed two years before, and which was the only foreign loan in Kenya’s books at the time. By the time the issue was going to the market, it had grown fourfold to $2 billion. By the time it closed, the government had borrowed $2.8 billion.

Within weeks of the successful debut, the treasury mandarins were talking of Sukuks (Islamic bonds) and Samurais (Japanese Yen denominated bonds), like children accidentally locked inside an ice cream parlour. Other than the syndicated loan repayment of $600 million there is no trace of anything financed with the money.

Since the global financial crisis, the financial markets have been awash with money churned out by the US Federal Reserve and other central banks, thereby depressing interest rates to near zero, prompting money managers to go looking for better returns in emerging markets. Aggressive salesmen were everywhere scouting for and massaging the egos of potential borrowers. Africa Rising.

China is getting more than its fair share of flak for Africa’s debt distress. The fear of the Dragon is over the top. Unlike the Western banks and markets which are embedded in the Western power structure, China will have little recourse when countries default. It cannot run them through the mill we saw “the troika” run Greece when it went into debt-distress in 2009. The head of China Export and Credit Insurance Corporation, known as Sinosure was recently quoted lamenting the poor quality of China’s infrastructure loans abroad. He went on to disclose that the agency is already a billion dollars out of pocket on Ethiopia’s new railway, whose preparation he termed “downright inadequate”. “Ethiopia’s planning capabilities are lacking, but even with the help of Sinosure and the lending Chinese bank it was still insufficient.”

It has also been reported that China may offload its infrastructure loans to the secondary market. The plan is to sell the loans to the Hong Kong Mortgage Corporation which will in turn repackage them, dice them up and sell them to investors, thereby releasing liquidity back to the primary lenders such as China Exim Bank to make more loans. This is not funny. First, the lenders admit that they have made dud loans. Then they follow this with an announcement that they will sell the same to investors. It is a scheme such as this, which mixed up low risk and high risk (a.k.a sub- prime) mortgage loans into securities known as Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDOs) that precipitated the erstwhile mentioned global financial crisis. More poignantly, the Dragons debt trap diplomacy as it’s been called, begins to look uncannily like hunting for yield. That is the supply side. On the demand side, you have African leaders who have no ideas of their own. From import substitution industrialization, to neoliberal orthodoxy in the 80s, to poverty reduction strategies and now infrastructure-led growth, they wander thoughtlessly from one aid paradigm to the next, all the while living up to Fanon’s prediction that they were destined to become “a transmission line between the nation and capitalism.”

The bigger problem is delusions of grandeur. Seemingly every one of these African big men has a Lee Kwan Yew complex. Even Uhuru Kenyatta, a man who couldn’t run an orderly kindergarten in a children’s park if his life depended on it, is prone to bouts of megalomania during which he comically dons military fatigues and goes around doing General Park Chung-hee skits.

On the demand side, you have African leaders who have no ideas of their own. From import substitution industrialization, to neoliberal orthodoxy in the 80s, to poverty reduction strategies and now infrastructure-led growth, they wander thoughtlessly from one aid paradigm to the next, all the while living up to Fanon’s prediction that they were destined to become “a transmission line between the nation and capitalism.

Africa has its economically successful nations: Botswana, Namibia, Mauritius, Cape Verde and the Seychelles. What do these successful African nations have in common? First, they are all small. Three of them are small island nations. Namibia is large geographically, but its population is only 2.5 million people. Second, they are also successful democracies. The five are consistently the highest ranked African countries in democracy league tables such as the Economist’s Democracy Index and the Freedom House Index.

Why are Africa’s small countries more politically and economically successful than the big ones?

Size matters. It is easier to build a small nation than a big one. Small islands are natural nations, hence it should not surprise that all the small island nations are successful. Madagascar is Africa’s sole big island nation, and it is not successful at all.

The big African countries are almost invariably very ethnically diverse. Recently, someone on social media asked me why benevolent dictatorship cannot work in Africa the way it worked in South Korea. My answer was a question: what tribe will the dictator be? He has not responded. Proponents of developmental autocracies fail to recognize that the East Asian countries are old nations, not the arbitrary colonial creations that African countries are. Korea is a culturally homogenous society with unified dynastic rule going back to 900 AD, and a political history, known as the Three Kingdoms, going back another millennium. The Thai Kingdom dates back 700 years.

Proponents of developmental autocracies fail to recognize that the East Asian countries are old nations, not the arbitrary colonial creations that African countries are. Korea is a culturally homogenous society with unified dynastic rule going back to 900 AD, and a political history, known as the Three Kingdoms, going back another millennium. The Thai Kingdom dates back 700 years.

Ethiopia is Africa’s oldest nation-state, and the only one that is not a colonial creation. It is also one of the largest and most diverse(100 million people, over 80 officially recognized ethnic groups). After the Derg’s reign of terror, Ethiopians adopted a constitution based on a loose ethnic federation. But Meles Zenawi could not resist the allure of the developmental autocrat. He borrowed and built like a man possessed but the economic miracle did not materialize, and Ethiopians, tired of autocracy without prosperity, took to the streets. The edifice has unravelled. The leadership is coming to terms with a historical fact that the rest will be reckoning with sooner or later: political development precedes prosperity.

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Zambia and Its Suitors

By Gado Published by the good folks at The Elephant.

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Zambia and Its Suitors

By Gado Within 30 minutes of meeting two different groups of people, Zambian rapper Pilato’s satire of Donald Glover’s This is America, becomes a topic. Pilato, to those who don’t know him, is to Zambia what Bobi Wine is to Uganda. A musician and an activist. Except that Pilato, real name Fumba Chama, failed to get a seat in Zambia’s August house in the last elections. But he, like Bobi Wine, has been arrested for protesting against and criticizing the current administration. To one of my well-heeled friends, Pilato’s This is Zambia is a poorly executed, poor reflection of the nation because ‘there is so much more to Zambia than the Chinese doing business here.’ He should decide, my friend says, on whether he wants to be a musician or a politician because, at the moment, he is not doing either of the two well. To our cab driver Mich and his friend, it’s an honest reflection of the country. ‘Pilato talks the truth in that song,’ Mich says. ‘We shall soon be asking the Chinese for permission to live in our country because they own so much of us. And, we are also so desperate that we want quick solutions through these alleged prophets.’ Mich knows what he is talking about regarding the latter. When he hears that our next stop is Zimbabwe, he laughs and tells us how he did a spiritual journey to Prophet Magaya in the neighbouring country. ‘It was a waste of money. I sowed a seed from my savings and years later, nothing has come of it.’

The evening Mich picks us up from the Inter-City Bus Stop on Dedan Kimathi Rd is our first night in Zambia since 2016. Back then, the current President Edgar Lungu was preparing to be elected for the first time after having taken over the reins of power on the late President ’s unexpected demise. This time, the only election that was on the cards was for the Mayor of Lusaka. Mich, a University of Zambia graduate who has been relegated to driving his mother’s car as a cab to earn an income and a strong supporter of the opposition, had already pronounced that whatever he wished, the candidate for the governing PF would win. ‘He is getting an endorsement from the President but even if he wasn’t winning, they would find a way for him to win.’ On this occasion, we are in Zambia for one night only. I shall return two weeks later for a writing workshop. The next time around, I will be in Zambia’s second largest city, , in the . For now though as we depart for Harare, everyone in our party notices that the roads from Lusaka towards the border with Zimbabwe seem to be much better than those we have had to deal with from the border with Tanzania. The reason is simple. Zambia and Zimbabwe do a lot of trade with each other and their capitals are a mere eight hours away from each other.

We take a little longer than we should at the border because Zimbabwe Customs want us to take all our luggage out and pay for any goods beyond a speculated number. The luggage goes through the X-Ray scanner after which we still have to stand by our luggage while a specially trained sniffer dog passes by each of our luggage. This is how my 13-year-old son ends up with four pieces of hair braids in his baggage. A woman who was seated next to us asked us whether we could please carry her braid pieces as she had eight and the maximum one can carry are four. It seemed a tad ridiculous, to say the least. The only other border where there is such curious attention to detail on what one brings in is at Beit Bridge border post as one enters or exits South Africa. When I return, I will notice that our bus just drives right through into Zambia after passports are stamped. It’s a great feeling.

I spend the night of my return in Lusaka with a Zambian writer friend before flying out. There seem to be many literary groupings in Zambia but so few books coming out which are competitive worldwide or even continentally. When I ask her why that is, she speculates that it’s because writing doesn’t pay but having the writer title is considered prestigious. So when people can have a little money on the side, they will write manuscripts and self-publish then have an author among their title while they continue with the daily grind of selling tomatoes or going to the office. I become apprehensive. What will I encounter at the writing workshop I am about to have over the weekend in Kitwe?

There are no flights from Lusaka to Kitwe so I fly to Ndola, hometown to Edgar Lungu and an hour away from Kitwe. I am on a small plane where we are not more than ten passengers. Flight time is a mere 45 minutes and this new airline manages to offer a snack and a drink on this short flight. On arrival, our flight attendant announces, ‘Welcome to Ndola Airport. We kindly ask passengers that they remain seated until Honourable blah blah has disembarked.’ Yet again I can’t help thinking how I absolutely abhor what I call a Mheshimiwa Complex that seems to be all over this continent. As I am leaving I ask the flight attendant, ‘Tell me. Why did you want us to wait for the Minister to disembark? Is he not a public servant and therefore should be waiting for the public first?’ The flight attendant is taken aback. He laughs. ‘You are not from here, are you?’ I answer that as a matter of fact I am. Baggage claim, in these sort of encounters, is the great equalizer. And so I take small delight in taking my bag before he does. However, as I am getting into a cab, I notice that the driver who came to pick up Mhesh from the airport is carrying his briefcase and his bag. Sigh. I arrive at my lodging in Kitwe an hour later.

In the morning, I shall meet the participants for the two day writing workshop. There are six writers in the workshop. I am particularly impressed by one young writer whose imagination, if he continues to write, would be perfect for the Arthur C. Clarke international science fiction award. The other writers are pretty impressive too and I understand why they may have been selected for the workshop. Only one writer worries me, although I say nothing about how I feel loudly. As I am giving them some different writing prompts, his pieces almost always conclude with a rebirth in Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. It’s fascinating to watch the interaction between he and the sci-fi writer, a young man who could be his son and who is taking a gap year before starting university next year. I do not know whether the young man is too much for him, but he does not return on the final day.

In conversation with the writers who all seem to be from families that are not rich but fairly comfortable, there is a sense of uncertainty about their futures. As I listen to them during our breaks, I can’t help but notice that I have seen these youngsters in many countries on the continent. I have seen them in Kenya, in Zimbabwe, in Botswana, in Ghana and in Nigeria. Those who are employed, are doing some contractual work for some NGOs and they hope they can be there for a long time, donor funding permitting. A couple do not work but are university graduates still staying at home praying for something, anything, to come up. The gap year young man is the only one who seems to still have some hope that through sheer hard work, he can make it. For his sake, I hope Zambia sorts itself out before he graduates. Unfortunately, the manager of our establishment makes me lose a bit of that hope. On a drive into town, she tells me of the debt that the country now owes our friends in the East. In Kitwe, as in Ndola, I spot a large Bank of China. ‘Is this a big thing here, I have seen it in Ndola too.’ She tells me that Bank of China is not for the locals but for the Chinese investors. ‘If any of us are using it, it’s because we are in partnership with Chinese companies.’

When I return to Lusaka, I shall be with my well-heeled friends. It’s a day before a public holiday so people are ordering beers in pitchers at Keg and Lion, a pub in Eastpark, one of Lusaka’s malls. Perhaps there is uncertainty here but it’s not as visible as it was among the writers in Kitwe or in conversation with Mich and his friends. The patrons are well-dressed and talk casually of whether the best parties are in Lagos, New York or Joburg. They talk of international airlines they will no longer fly because of profiling and have a relative or two in London who they have bought groceries for while visiting. When they get ill, my well-heeled friends in Keg & Lion will be stabilized then fly out of the country to mend, just like the two Presidents of Zambia who died in office. It’s a different face of Zambia, a face with so few of the country’s population but unfortunately for Pilato and his fans, this too is Zambia. The connected Zambia that matters and is worth paying attention to - according to those who govern the land – except just before elections. In this way, Zambia duplicates many other African nations.

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