Zambia: Mwanawasa – King or President? · Global Voices
Brenda Zulu

2008 starts with bloggers in Zambia reading local newspapers and making a few comments on the stories. Mwankole asks is
Mwanawasa – King or President?:
Mwanawasa’s recent statement regarding Prof Clive Chirwa’s intention, to contest the MMD presidency are a sad reflection of the infancy of democratic governance in Zambia. “Now, let me give a timely warning to people who have been outside. They have been outside living in a foreign environment. They come back to the country and think that we are all foolish; we are all incapable of providing leadership and now they are God sent people,” Mwanawasa.
Does a Zambian citizen lose the rights and privileges of the constitution just because one lives abroad for a period of time?
Might this, also be a symptom of a culture or perhaps politicians, still evolving from the traditional administrative structure of chiefs to the constitutional structure of political leadership elected by universal suffrage.
Of course, there is nothing wrong with an incumbent President endorsing a preferred successor, however in the Zambian scenario, it is the personal ownership of the Presidency that Mwanawasa and Chiluba before seem to claim and enforce that sparks grave concern.
This suck up to me, kneel before me, acknowledge my slightest gesture or movement and by all means ask my permission mentality, is what I as Prof Chirwa find unpalatable.
This mindset sadly, also underscores the reason Mwanawasa and others before him seem to play games with the constitution review process.
Zambia Gamefields Investment Journal also observes that Zambia Wildlife Authority official, Andrew Nkhoma, continues to sabotage community development:
A report just received from the Chairman of the Luembe Community Resource Board in the Luangwa Valley, is that the Nyimba ZAWA Community Liaison Officer, Andrew Nkhoma – who recently was party to the illegal arrest and abuse of a foreign hunting client – see http://zambiasafarihunting.blogspot.com and his seriously ill professional hunter, used undue pressure on Board members at a meeting on 28 December (convened to workshop finance management) and obtained a statement of condemnation of Mbeza Safaris operations and its delivery of community assistance. The Chairman has written a letter of objection to ZAWA.
Mbeza, which is funded by its holding company, Gamefields, the latter investing to the tune of $1.6 million in Mbeza and in the Luembe Conservancy Trust since 2003, was bought to assist in the development of the area. However, officials such as Nkhoma, doubtless upset by our revelations on the Nyimba ZAWA office's operation of a bushmeat and ivory poaching operation, would wish to have us removed, joining those with similar sentiments at ZAWA HQ and in some political circles. The only reason that Gamefields and Mbeza continue investing in Zambia is precisely because we have overwhelming community support. Should that not be forthcoming, we would be the first to accept that we were not wanted, and pack our bags. Mr Nkhoma has not heard the last of this.
ICT Journalist writes, “Wi-Fi – Today’s Pioneering Broadband Wireless Technology“:
All broadband technologies can lead to enormous economic and social benefits for peoples of every development level. The key to success is a combination of favorable regulatory, economic and development strategies that support broadband deployment.
Zambia now offers the ubiquitous ability of a wireless communications network that has been always been thought to be the main advantage of a mobile communications network. Sub-Saharan mobile communications networks have lately grown in capacity, robustness and coverage. What determines the choice of a network now is the value added services and applications that it is able to offer. Most networks have attained their optimum speed in the provision of data services and in GSM, which most, if not all sub-Saharan networks are offering – the maximum data rates can only get up to 9600 kbps. This has to be in a good coverage area.
Issues of matters also adds his voice on trouble torn Kenya in the post elections. He observes:
Today Kenya is facing two distinct destinies. One is the possibility of someone with Kenyan blood in his veins on the brink of becoming president of the world’s only super power, the US. The other real possibility is that the country of Barack Obama’s paternal ancestors is on the brink of breaking up.
The reason why today Obama faces the possibility of making history as the first black American president is because of the democracy that has evolved over the last 300 years in that country. On the contrary, Kenya risks breaking up because of the failure of democracy in that country in the less than 50 years it has been independent.
On at least two occasions Obama has been to Kenya to visit his paternal grandmother who is still alive, on one occasion he was an anonymous traveller whose suitcases even ended up in South Africa, but on the other occasion as a US senator, everything went like clock-work. Even trees in the village he went to were given a coat of paint.
There is a possibility still that when he will be travelling on Airforce One as the most powerful man in the world, Obama may want to go back to that Kenyan village to eat nyamachoma and kachumbari prepared not by White House chefs, but by his grandmother, drink not triple filtered water from White House, but water from the stream near his grandmother’s village.