A sitting president must have the self-confidence to want power and to believe that his exercise of it can tilt the country in the right direction.
But he should also have the humility and maturity to recognise on any likely projection of the past that his power will come to an end, probably in about five years, maybe less, only exceptionally more. This is the reality of life and leadership.
And the test of his statesmanship in the context of history will not therefore be how many trees he pulls up by the roots but how he fits into a continuous process of adaptation in which, leadership is combined with sensitivity to national mood.
That said, I warn you that you must not expect work and things to be better under his rule.
In a futile attempt to get single digit inflation, he drained the blood – money – out of the economy, killing effective demand. When many have no money to spend, more will not be able to earn. When they don’t earn, they don’t spend. When they don’t spend work dies – production of goods and services shrinks.
It’s hurting, but he doesn’t want you to complain, to shout and be heard. He wants you to endure all the pain in silence. He is ready to use the police in all sorts of ways to keep you in painful silence. To him, leadership entails, bringing the country and its people under control by all means necessary, including brute force.
But I warn you again that, if you don’t resist, you will be quiet. When the curfew of fear and the gibbet of unemployment, hunger and starvation make you obedient.
Mr Hakainde Hichilema has become more of an Emperor than a president. That power produces arrogance, and when it is toughened by intolerance and flattered, and frowned upon by spineless sycophants, the arrogance corrupts absolutely.
Such arrogance, unless moderated by colleagues who have more humility, experience, understanding, and sensitivity, can turn into a horrendous vice. Unfortunately, Mr Hichilema, as an Emperor, doesn’t have colleagues in his Cabinet with both the courage and the ability to argue with him and moderate his ego, arrogance and intolerance.
Today, Mr Hichilema may posture and pretend to be very strong, visionary and confident. But gigantic problems lie ahead. He doesn’t know where he is headed, and that is very dangerous. Whatever he is doing is a mere shot in the dark – he is just guessing that what he says or does is correct or will yield successful outcomes. It’s a gamble!
So far, Mr Hichilema’s great achievement is directionless emperorship: he appears to be in control, but no one knows where he is heading.
It’s time to wake up, unite, and resist Mr. Hichilema’s destruction of our country and our lives.
Fred M’membe
President of the Socialist Party