Zambia has done it again, having an election in which an incumbent loses to the opposition. The trend was set by founding father Kenneth Kaunda when he handed over power to his competitor, Fredrick Chiluba.
This time round, Hakainde Hichilema won the election by more than a million votes. HH, as he is commonly known, has run and lost in five presidential elections.
In the past, he lost with a narrow margin of 27,775 votes (1.66 per cent) in what many believed to have been open rigging by Edgar Lungu, who had succeeded Michael Sata.
Kaunda had endorsed him as the candidate for three opposition parties under the United Democratic Alliance (UDA). An economist who was born in a poor village, he got a scholarship to study at the University of Zambia. He later earned an MBA at the University of Birmingham.
HH has been the CEO of two companies, the last being an accounting firm. He is a wealthy businessman, owning the biggest cattle ranch in Zambia. Forbes ranks him as possibly the richest man in Zambia, with an estimated net worth of $389 million (Sh42.4 billion).
He didn’t find it easy being president, though. Over and above losing five times since 2006, HH was charged by his predecessor for treason which carries the death penalty. He was imprisoned for 400 days, including eight days in which he was denied food and water and held incommunicado.
The police tortured him and sprayed pepper on his private parts. His wife Mutinta was denied access when she visited him in prison. Others denied access were South Africa’s Democratic Alliance leader Mmusi Maimane and Zambia’s founding father Kaunda.
Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and Secretary of the Commonwealth Patricia Scotland were able to visit him. After intense pressure, Edgar Lungu released him.
In total, HH had been imprisoned more than 15 times, largely on flimsy charges, the last one being that he had refused to give way to the presidential motorcade. At some point, the police barricaded and attacked his home, throwing tear gas canisters at the house, affecting his asthmatic wife.
They stole colossal amounts of money, ate food in the kitchen and defaecated on his bed. They beat up his children and workers in a failed attempt to intimidate him as the main opposition leader. At some point, he was also forced to kneel submissively before Edgar Lungu to mortify him.
In the 2021 elections, HH used his background to connect with the electorate who are 70 per cent youth. He demonstrated he was a shrewd businessman who had made a fortune from finance, health, agriculture and tourism — unlike Lungu who spent his time in bars and nightclubs.
The president-elect faces the daunting task of turning around an economy whose public debt is estimated to be more than $12 billion (Sh1.31 trillion) in a country where one out of every five Zambians is unemployed.
The country, which is the world's second-biggest copper producer, became the first to default on its loans and the economy went into a recession in this Covid-19 era.
Cyprian Nyamwamu and Wandia Njoya argue we shouldn’t celebrate the win of HH since he subscribes to the Washington consensus as an economic model, and that it shall be business as usual.
They say that just as in Kenya, nothing much will change. The colonial state was replaced by a predatory one captured by the independent political class. Successive governments have done little to deconstruct its architecture towards a more people-centred government.
Indeed, as has been argued here before, this thinking is largely true. Our current economic model has only moved us further into the pit ever since JM Kariuki claimed Kenya was a country of 10 millionaires and 10 million beggars.
Currently, Kenya is a country of 90 billionaires and 50 million beggars. However, it follows that some regimes, such as that of Mwai Kibaki, did indeed achieve commendable economic growth.
Kenya was ranked among the top three fastest-growing economies together with countries such as China. By 2007, we experienced a growth of seven per cent, while China was at 10 per cent.
How, then, can Zambia, a copper-rich country, default on its loan repayment? Closer to home, how can a county like Taita Taveta be so poverty-stricken, while global celebrities dazzle with rare jewels mined from the Taita hills?
It is rich in gemstones including rubies, as well as gold, titanium, iron ore and other minerals.
This demonstrates the market is still configured preemptively to procure raw materials for industries in western and other capitals.
A rethinking of all of our value chains in each and every economic sector is critical if we are to make a turnaround so raw materials are processed here in this country. Then they would attract raw materials from our neighbouring countries as well through the Africa Continental Free Trade Area.
These changes, in my view, are achieved incrementally and over time, from one regime to another. The bottom-up economic and governance model is a great attempt to re-think the economic strata for the benefit of the common mwananchi.
(Edited by V. Graham)
