Presidents and Politics

It's the end of the rainy season and long overdue for another post.  I have been thinking and learning about many things since the beginning of December but the most dominant has been politics.

Ill

Since I started receiving Google alerts in December 2013 about Zambia and the President, The Zambia Watchdog has referred to President Michael Sata as "the ailing dictator".  On many occasions anti-government media outlets have reported that he was sick, or even dead on a couple of occasions.  State run and pro-government media have always tried to present a very healthy active president. In September he trotted off to New York for the annual gathering of world leaders at the UN General Assembly.  He didn't deliver his scheduled address to the 193 member world body.  In October he disappeared from public life, from Zambia, apparently to be found in Israel receiving treatment for an undisclosed illness. Then he was back and addressing the people, then he disappeared again to be found in London.

Death

On 28 October the BBC announced, (bizarrely, rather than Zambia's State House), that the President had died at the age of 77 in London's King Edward VII hospital after treatment for a still undisclosed illness.  He had served 3 years and 35 days of his 5 year term and is the second of the five presidents to die in office (a third died shortly after he left office).  So began a three week period of mourning for the dead president during which time one had to remain somber and respectful so all public events of any sort were postponed (like school sports days and kitchen parties and weddings).  It became miraculously quiet.  The noise and music that had filled the air, invaded it even, until 3am at the weekend and some days during the week, just stopped.  We could hear birds sing and people talking, rather relaxing really.

The Post's front page 4th November showing
 the mourning friends and family and the
challenge to the interim presidency

In government this left a curious power vacuum whilst both politicians and the public, debated the legitimacy of Vice-President Guy Scott's position.  Actually there isn't much evidence that it was politically debated, on the floor of the house so to speak; it just played out in the news.  You see, generally if the president is unable to fulfil his duties (which given that he was dead would have been tricky) the vice president becomes acting president under the current Zambian constitution.  However, the constitution also requires both parents of presidential candidates to be "Zambian by birth or descent".  Scott’s parents were both born in the UK and emigrated to the then Northern Rhodesia in 1927 and 1940. Thus Scott could have been considered ineligible to take up acting president.  The provision was put in place by President Frederick Chiluba to prevent the first president, Kenneth Kaunda – whose father was born in what became Malawi – from becoming president again (after his 27 year term).

Guy Scott himself was born in Livingstone in the south of Zambia, educated in what is now Zimbabwe and then Cambridge University, Sussex University, Oxford University and back to Sussex.  He is a well educated man for sure, economics, cognitive science, robotics and finally a doctorate in artificial intelligence.  Having worked with his father on an anti-colonialist newspaper he joined the government just after independence as a planner in the Ministry of Finance and so far as I can work out has been in politics ever since.  It is pertinent to note that President George W. Bush referred to him as “a scaly old dude”.

The "Scaly Old Dude" - Acting President Guy Scott

Finally, it was agreed that he would become Acting President for what remained of the 90 day period before the election of the new president.  He was the first white president in Africa since the last apartheid-era President of South Africa, F. W. de Klerk.

Funeral

The funeral was pretty well organized apparently (this accusation does depend on your benchmark to begin with).  It only started 3 hours late.  We were personally invited via text, 3 minutes before it was due to begin.

Canvassing and Campaigning

Canvassing and campaigning started on 19 November but really began in earnest in January on our return from the UK, and lasted until 19 January, the day before the election.  Buses and lorries full of cadres from all political parties could be seen everywhere, with the assigned coloured beret, singing and shouting at the tops of their voices, no doubt peddling the relevant opinions (couldn’t tell because they were in local languages).  Quite how they earned money during this time isn’t clear but they were very busy hustling people into a frenzy.  It was on the whole a peaceful affair although there were a couple of reported ‘incidents’ in Ndola.  Our maid referred to the incidents as "cadres causing confusion".

UPND party cadres going slow and holding up
 traffic 

Election Day

Voting officially ran from 06.00 – 18.00, everything else was shut down.  No shopping, no school, no work, no restaurants, so everyone had the opportunity to vote.  Wherever you registered you must return there to vote.  So for instance, our gardener Benson had to return to the Copperbelt in order to cast his vote. Since the 20 January is in the middle of the rainy season, there was severe rain pretty much everywhere and where there would usually be continuous queuing outside polling stations people stayed home.  Such was the effect that the electoral commission allowed certain of the worst affected polling stations to re-open the next day too.  In order to make sure people only voted once when they had voted their right thumb nail was painted black.  I only found this out in discussion with our guards, when I commented on the unlikely misfortune of so many of them having bruised thumbs.

At 22.00 hours on 24 January 2015, exactly 100 hours after the official polls closed, Edgar Lungu of the PF (Patriotic Front) was declared sixth president of the Republic of Zambia. He polled 807,925 votes beating his closest rival Hakainde Hichilema of UPND (United Party for National Development) who polled 780,168. An enormous cheer was heard across the city and apparently spontaneous partying began.

We had several friends who were involved in election observation and they all commented that it seemed free and fair, and with just a 1.6% difference that would seem true (my reasoning being that whoever was controlling an unfair election would not allow it to get so close – logical?).  Only 32% of registered voters actually turned out to vote.

Civil society monitor signing party seal
 on empty ballot box prior to opening voting

Sealing the ballot box to send to counting centre

Presiding Officer posting election results at polling station - Lukashya constituency

Presidency

After a nice two week break the new president took up office.  Although each presidential candidate was required to undergo medical screening, on 8 March President Lungu collapsed whilst giving a speech to commemorate International Women’s day and was immediately sent off to South Africa for treatment.  The president’s office said he was suffering from a narrowing of the oesophagus which needed a high-tech medical procedure currently unavailable in Zambia.  Rumours abounded that he had oesophageal cancer, related to his alcoholism.  Who knows?  But as one blogger said “Does evidence of a disease of the lung affect a person’s ability to rule? This is why our constitution only states that one should not lead when [one is] sick, for such a requirement would be impossible to meet by mere mortals.”  Much as I don’t hold with the President’s policies and method of governing, I have to agree with that logic.

President Edgar Lungu

Fuel Crisis
Barely had Mr. Lungu recovered consciousness when the country was paralysed by a fuel crisis.  The first sign was one Sunday afternoon in March when we had decided to drive out to Munda Wanga, Lusaka’s answer to a zoo.  We thought that since the gauge was on red we’d better stop for some petrol, but had to try three or four stations before we found one with any petrol.  Didn’t really think anything of it then; Lusaka is always running out of stuff.  Since we don’t drive anywhere during the week we didn’t notice anything untoward.  It was only the next weekend, when we were down in Livingstone, that we saw long, long queues of traffic outside a solitary petrol station, and no cars at all at the others.  On questioning our taxi driver we learned of the fuel crisis.

Chaos at the pump

Zambian news is not clear at the best of times but little by little we were able to build up a picture.  At first the Minister of Mines, Energy and Water Development, Christopher Yaluma denied there was a crisis. Then when it became clear that even he could no longer deny it, he demanded people should stop panic buying and that was contributing to the shortage.  Finally, after we started to see abandoned cars at the side of the road, he blamed the shortage on the oil marketing companies.

So I thought I’d investigate what really happened.  It’s rather interesting, and of course, not as simple as the media had portrayed.  As with most other commodities, Zambia imports fuel, and there are three ways they do this.  Firstly, there is the Tanzania Zambia Mafuta Pipeline (usually called TAZAMA pipeline).  The company is jointly owned by the Zambian and Tanzanian governments. TAZAMA pumps fuel from the terminal at Dar-es-Salaam to the refinery in Dar, then on to the refinery in Ndola (Copperbelt part of Zambia).  It is supposed to pump the majority of the nation’s fuel but because of pipeline breakages and issues either end it only processes about 60% of the requirement.  The shortfall is covered by the second method, through international petroleum dealers who import the finished products into the country.  Two companies, Trafigura and Dalbit Petroleum have specific contracts with the government to import.  Lastly there are the Oil Marketing Companies like PUMA, Egen and Total.  These companies can import the finished product and sell on the open market but the government has imposed a 25% tax on them.  So none of them import to sell because they don’t make any profit.

For reasons that have yet to be determined, no deliveries of any sort were made for over a month, so Zambia was forced to take from its month’s reserve and started to run short.  The crunch point coincided with the president falling ill and there was a distinct lack of direction.  Then payments from the ministry of energy were not forthcoming to suppliers.  So you have a shortage, or a crisis depending on how you’re affected.

Anyway, it seemed to resolve itself after a week or two.  Things returned to normal, and the petrol pump attendants once again had something to do other than merely wave motorists straight through the forecourt!