The old adage “practice makes perfect” holds true to every locale in the human enterprise and or in everyone’s life. The upcoming presidential by-election will usher in a 4th president for the Zambian Enterprise, democratically elected in a peaceful transfer of power.
While others may want to just take this for granted, we at the Zambian Chronicle realize its importance and significance that we just had to write home about it. On a continent filled with rage and at best incumbents’ desire for lifelong presidencies, the Zambian Enterprise leads the pack in many ways.
In fact, other than ours in the Sub-Saharan region, Botswana is the only country that boosts of holding the longest record in peaceful transfer of power with democratically elected presidents and its economic stability speaks volumes of its own.
All things being equal, democracies have the ability to bring out the best among the collective; the people and not the system(s) become the means through which society chooses for itself what its desired posterity should be.
No one single person becomes more powerful than the sum of the all and by so doing it (a democratic system) creates checks and balances for the mutual benefit(s) of both the system and its peoples. Of all other latent issues, democracy tends to create a system of correcting wrongs with the greatest of ease.
Take the emergence of multiple party politics in 1991, for instance. The Kaunda era though vibrant at first could not stand the test of time. This is because it was built on flawed communistic policies and no amount of humanism preaching by KK or even Archangel Gabriel could improve anything otherwise at all.
The fact is simply that communism does not work, however perfectly envisioned even in a perfect world. Man is impenitently self-interested and when there is nothing for him/her but for the collective he/she tends to be ineffective at best.
It is no wonder every body during the latter Kaunda era developed a “Niva Boma” attitude. One was not obligated to anything and “Waco ni waco” (nepotism) swelled and huge misappropriation of all resources led to corruption and other graft devices.
When FTJ came on the scene, he really did not have any message at all but the smart people of the Zambian Enterprise gave him a chance all because they were ready for change. They were promised privatization, and without asking for accountability they went along because they had hope the time for “Niva Boma and Waco in Waco” had come to an end.
When they matched through the streets chanting “The Hour, The Hour, The Hour Has Come”, to many others it did not matter whether or not that hour had come for them to be unemployed, that hour had come for them to be without medical coverage, free hospitals and free education; it mattered dimly squat what that “hour that had come” meant.
Most smarts even mistook democracy for privatization I often remark … but the system worked. This is not to say, there was no corruption, this is not to say peoples’ perception about “Niva Boma and Waco ni Waco” changed, in most cases these were actually amplified.
The Chiluba regime proved that too much power bestowed in the presidency was erroneous and corrective measures were taken, it also proved that zeal without knowledge is murderously dangerous for any enterprise and we started replacing rhetoric with execution starting with Levy P Mwanawasa, SC.
We learnt that government works better when it is accountable to the electorate and not the other way round. We learnt that there is still a lot of international goodwill out there as long as a nation is willing to do the right things, by taking the right steps, every time, all the time …
And overall, as every one adhered to good governance, bad apples were being identified and exposed, culprits brought to book including FTJ himself and the system got perfected day by day, thanks a trillion in great part to Levism (MHSRIP).
Levy had his share of mistakes too but we will leave those for others to comment at the present moment. But we know that he did his best to turn the economy, the work culture and posterity around; at each and every stage, he had the best interest of our Enterprise at heart …
After next week, the smart people of the Zambian Enterprise are heading to the polls again, in part to prove the system works but overall, to perfect it even further.
Oh yes, practice makes perfect and we encourage all the eligible smart people of the Zambian Enterprise to go the polls en masse, it’s our God given right, make use of it …
We once said here that not much would be expected out of this by-election because it is more of a care-taker presidency until the Tripartite General Election in 2011.
But we encourage even losers to understand that there is a lot of winning in losing and moving the nation forward after conceding – there can only be one president at a time.
Whoever becomes the next CEO of our Enterprise, we at the Zambian Chronicle will render our full moral support just like we did for Levy.
We will criticize him when we see mistakes made not because we want to be vocal for nothing by using our bully pulpit but because Zambia is greater than any single one of us.
Whatever the outcome, the real winner will be Levy P Mwanawasa, SC. who proved the system works and practice makes perfect, Long Live Levism!!!
Live Long & Prosper; that’s this week’s memo from us at the Zambian Chronicle … thanks a trillion.
Zambian Chronicle 