FREDERICK Titus Jacob Chiluba (FTJC) passed away on June 18, 2011, aged 68.
The second President of the Republic of Zambia, FTJC will be remembered for bringing democracy to Zambia in particular, and for inspiring democratic movements in the region.
A post liberation hero, Chiluba punctured the myth surrounding Africa’s founding fathers’ veil of omnipotence , infallibility and indispensability when he humbled Kenneth Kaunda in a free and fair election in 1992.
President Kaunda presided over Zambia’s independence in 1964. He ruled Zambia with an iron fist for a good 28 years. Two generations later, FTC, standing barely 1.5 feet tall, defeated the larger-than-life Kaunda in what became a watershed election in Southern Africa. With his traditional white handkerchief in hand, Kaunda conceded defeat to Chiluba’s Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD), marking yet another first and peaceful transfer of power in a country that had not known any other leader since independence.
When the MMD was formed in 1990, Chiluba had cut his teeth in the trade union movement. As a workers’ movement leader, Chiluba was not limited by his height in terms of what he could achieve for the movement and his country. His detractors often denigrated him for his height without recognition of his abilities.
The similarities continue in Zimbabwe today where the Movement for Democratic Change leader and Prime Minister Morgan Richard Tsvangirai is often vilified as a “tea boy” of little intellectual achievement. For such are the tactics and strategies adopted by the liberators now turned oppressors of their people that nothing is out of bounds of civil discourse, as long as it helps them score very cheap political points.
Chiluba saw it all. A bus conductor, Chiluba started from very humble beginnings. His political acumen, fearlessness and resilience in the face of apparently insurmountable odds led him and his protégés like the late third President of Zambia, Levi Mwanawasa, to challenge the narration that only those political parties that ushered in independence should rule their countries regardless of their less than stellar records in good governance. UNIP, the party of Kenneth Kaunda, had become so corrupt and bereft of ideas that its sell by date had long come and gone.
Chiluba takes his place in the political history of Southern Africa as the man who introduced words like democracy and multi-partyism. Look at the names of all the liberation parties in Southern Africa and you will note that the “D” word is missing: Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU), Zimbabwe African People’s Party (ZAPU), United National Independence Party (UNIP), Malawi Congress Party (MCP), People’s Movement for Liberation of Angola (MPLA), Tanganyika African National Union (TANU), African National Congress (ANC), Pan African Congress (PAC).
These were political parties formed at a certain point in time, with a specific objective to liberate their people from colonialism and not necessarily to bring about democracy and multi-party politics. Democracy and multi-partyism were and still are foreign to their lexicons.
In Zambia, UNIP was able to rule without challenge for so long because multi-party democracy was not a part of its founding values. In Zimbabwe, Zanu PF still thinks it should rule without challenge. In South Africa, Tanzania, Angola and Malawi the script reads eerily the same and the people have to fight again in order to bring about democracy in those countries.
This state of affairs explains why Chiluba occupies a very place in the history of democratic movements in the region. He was able to inspire the new generation to look beyond the founding fathers for democracy and rule of law. It was not in their DNAs, the liberation political parties, to open the political space to all citizens. Instead of truly liberating their people, the new ruling class mimicked, with tragic consequences, the same brutal tactics employed by the colonial rulers to suppress and subjugate the indigenous populations.
Instead of overhauling the colonial laws, like the Law and Order Maintenance Act in the case of Zimbabwe, the new rulers invented every reason they could come up with to maintain and strengthen those oppressive laws, often citing legal impediments to their repeal. In Zambia, Kenneth Kaunda outlawed all opposition political activity and turned a nation into that undemocratic “One Zambia One Nation, One Zambia One Leader, and That Leader is Kenneth Kaunda” mantra.
In Zimbabwe, the preoccupation with a one party state and the subsequent Unity Accord with ZAPU in 1987 sealed the nation’s fate that has condemned our country to the dictatorship of Zanu PF. It is unfortunate that Zanu PF has managed to hoodwink and bribe some very gullible youths to believe that democracy and multi-party politics and free and fair elections are synonymous with neo colonialism. The Zimbabwean equivalent of Zambia’s “One Nation, One Leader” is the “VaMugabe Forever” or “Forever VaMugabe” that you hear being chanted at Zanu PF rallies.
These political parties that ushered independence will all die the moment they lose power. They are not only undemocratic in government, but they lack mechanisms within to reform and renew, such that any loss of power tears them at the seams. They operate like the mafia. The big done cannot be challenged, nor is he required to groom the next leadership. They know once their time is up, they implode – and are either all incarcerated or go underground. To delay the inevitable, many people have to die to secure the status quo.
President Chiluba, in spite of all his transgressions -- corruption and love for everything exotic including designer shoes -- will always be remembered for bringing hope to the oppressed people. He was a pioneer, a true son of Zambia whose bravery has inspired a new group of leaders in the region determined to spring their countries free from one-man rule.
These leaders of yester year did their part liberating our countries, but they are not suited for the challenges of leading their countries to the next higher level of political and economic emancipation. President Chiluba and the MMD took the baton from an exhausted Kaunda, who was clearly out of his depth leading a modern nation state.
When the history of democratic transformation in Southern Africa is written, Chiluba’s name should occupy prime space in the narrative.