Zambia had a peaceful democratic election:
Rupiah’s ‘President of all Zambians’ speech
By KENNEDY LIMWANYA
IT had a resonance of Martin Luther King Jr’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech delivered on August 28, 1963 in Washington before 200,000 civil rights supporters.
Four times in his presidential inaugural speech at Parliament building in Lusaka on Sunday, November 2, 2008, President-elect Rupiah Banda uttered the words: “I will be president of all Zambians”.
It may not have had the oratory dimensions of King Jr’s “I Have a Dream”, but it was a touching speech in many ways.
The last time there had been such a gathering at Parliament building was during the funeral ceremony for late president Levy Mwanawasa who had died in France in August.
President Banda’s swearing-in ceremony fell just a day shy of exactly two months since Dr Mwanawasa’s burial on September 3.
Maureen Mwanawasa, the widow of the late president, was also in attendance, and President Banda did recognise her presence in his salutation.
He’s was a speech of hope, assuring everyone that he would be a president of all, regardless of whether they had voted for him in the October 30 election or not.
“My fellow Zambians, eight weeks ago, I launched my campaign to be President of the Republic of Zambia. For me, to be President is to be President of all Zambians,” said Mr Banda whose political life dates back to his teenage days.
Even in those days, he had learned to do things not only for himself but also for all Zambians and fellow Africans.
As a young student pursuing a bachelor’s degree in economic history at Lund University in Sweden, Mr Banda was United National Independence Party (UNIP) representative in northern Europe.
As his “President of all Zambians” speech still proves, Mr Banda was in those pre-independence days a representative for all Zambians and helped many of them secure scholarships to study in Europe.
Over 40 years later, Mr Banda has not changed, and his speech when being sworn in as fourth president of Zambia had a reconciliatory and fatherly tone about it.
On that sunny day at Parliament building, one of the invited guests in attendance must have been the proudest- Kenneth Kaunda, the founding president of Zambia.
Proud that one of his protégés had finally assumed the responsibility he had begun to groom him for, when he thrust the 28-year-old into the deep end of the swimming pool with a posting as ambassador to the United Arab Republic (now Egypt) in 1965.
Proud too that Mr Banda kept on saying, “I will be president of all Zambians”, and when the new president reprised the One Zambia, One Nation motto, Dr Kaunda was almost jumping from his seat in excitement.
Seated on Dr Kaunda’s left was the new First Lady, Thandiwe who, like the president, will need to be a mother of all Zambians.
On Mrs Banda’s left was Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe who must have been another proud man that day.
It was in Zimbabwe (then Southern Rhodesia), in a place known as Gwanda, where Mr Banda was born on February 19, 1937 when Mr Mugabe was already 13.
Seventy-one years later, the 84-year-old President Mugabe was in Lusaka witnessing the inauguration of President Banda who had emerged victorious from a gruelling election campaign in which he had made a last ditch rally from behind to marginally defeat opposition firebrand Michael Sata into second position.
Patriotic Front president Sata, United Party for National Development president Hakainde Hichilema, who came third, and tail-ending Heritage Party’s Brigadier-General Godfrey Miyanda did not attend the swearing-in ceremony.
But to the trio, President Banda reached out in an exhibition of true statesmanship:
“The campaign is over, what is in the past must remain so . . . Today, I offer my friendship to Michael Sata, Hakainde Hichilema, and Godfrey Miyanda . . . I do so because it is not my intention to govern a divided nation.”
A divided is nation is ungovernable, President Banda must have been thinking, and he, surely, was speaking from the experience he had ammased during the years he served as a diplomat and minister of Foreign Affairs.
He had seen it all in those years in which he, many times, played the role of negotiator as citizens of African nations quarreled over matters of governance.
Such matters are not new to President Banda who assumed the position of Zambian vice-president when president Mwanawasa appointed him on October 9, 2006
Barely two years later, following Dr Mwanawasa’s hospitalisation in France after suffering a stroke in Egypt on June 29, Mr Banda took on an even more onerous task.
He took over as acting president as the life of Zambia’s third president, who had been in office for less than two years after winning his second five-year term in September 2006, faded away.
Today, in his role as president, Mr Banda wants to embrace everyone as he works towards completing the late Dr Mwanawasa’s term, which runs up to 2011.
“Today, I give up the title of acting president and take up the mantle of President of the Republic of Zambia. I will serve as President of all Zambians.”
That was the second time he was stressing that point, minutes after he had been handed the instruments of power by Chief Justice Ernest Sakala before a gathering that included regional presidents like South Africa’s Kgalema Motlanthe and Bingu wa Mutharika of Malawi.
Also present that day were several leaders of opposition political parties that had supported Mr Banda’s presidential candidature and countrywide election campaign.
Conspicuous among these were Forum for Democracy and Development (FDD) president Edith Nawakwi and United Liberal Party’s Sakwiba Sikota as well as former Zambian vice-presidents Enoch Kavindele and Lieutenant-General Christon Tembo, who was Ms Nawakwi’s predecessor as FDD head.
There were also faces from the sports fraternity, most notably Mr Teddy Mulonga, the former Football Association of Zambia president who, incidentally, was also involved in campaigning for President Banda’s election.
The presence of Zambians from diverse walks of life appeared to tally with President Banda’s statement on the importance of a united force.
“This election will not divide us. It will unite us all in a common goal. We may be a country of many tribes, of many languages, different religions and of many colours, but never forget that we are one nation.”
And this is the one nation to which Mr Banda, with the support of his Movement for Multi-Party Democracy (MMD), wishes to devote his energy until the country gets out of the demeaning yoke of poverty.
As he rightly put it, too many Zambians have been left out and do not share in the economic prosperity of the country as registered over the last seven years of the late Dr Mwanawasa’s reign.
“My priority will be to fight poverty . . . Poverty is demeaning and an unnecessary evil. I do not want people to think of Zambia as a Third World country with a begging bowl. I want to move from hand-outs to hand-ups. I want to empower all Zambians. I want people to think of Zambia as a prosperous and confident nation. We have a goal of making Zambia a middle-income nation by 2030.”
Is this not too ambitious? How will all this be achieved?
“The path to 2030 is through education. I firmly believe that education is the passport out of poverty.”
Right on target!
Countries that have heavily invested in the education of their citizens are shining examples of how investment in this sector can spur development to great heights.
Japan is one such country which prioritised education during the Meiji Restoration Government from 1868 to 1912, making the country, particularly Hiroshima, a world centre of knowledge and learning, in the process helping accelerate national modernisation.
Even after the United States bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 during the Second World War, the country was still able to rise from the rubble largely because of the massive investment that had gone into the education of Japanese people.
It is, therefore, not by accident that Japan is where it is today and stands tall among the world’s economies.
President Banda is well aware of this requirement.
“We must make sure that our next generation is equipped with the skills to prosper in the modern world,” said President Banda at the function also graced by his children, grandchildren and daughters-in-law.
He pledged to continue the policies that will ensure that the living conditions of the majority of Zambians improved so that more citizens can enjoy the fruits of an expanding economy.
“I do so in the belief that continuity, good governance and economic prosperity for all is right for Zambians.”
For the third time, President Banda’s refrain was: “I want all to prosper. I will be President of all Zambians.”
Apart from his desire to make Zambia a hub of knowledge and learning in southern Africa, President Banda’s speech inspired even much more hope.
He said he wanted to make the country the nerve centre of inward investment, transport and tourism.
Is all this possible?
“This vision is possible. We are at the centre of southern Africa. We have immediate borders with no less than eight countries . . . Zambia is at the crossroads of southern Africa and we will take advantage of it.”
The president mentioned Zambia’s national parks as just some of the country’s attractions which could be taken advantage off to boost tourist arrivals while Luapula and Northern provinces also needed opening up to tourism.
Apart from tourism, agriculture and mining are the other fundamental sectors to Zambia’s economy.
The tone of Mr Banda’s speech, when it came to mentioning all these natural resources, had the semblance of former United States President Bill Clinton’s own inaugural speech in 1992 in which he said there was nothing wrong with Americans that could not be made right by Americans.
In the same vein, only Zambians can make it right for Zambia.
President Banda assured all Zambians that the country would be safe and secure under his presidency.
Immediately after that, he made it four times.
“During my campaign, I said, ‘I will be President of all Zambians’. I mean that. Now is the time to move forward and for all Zambians to unite. ”
So much inspiration and hope in President Banda’s speech, for it is only in unity that the seemingly inconquerable is conquered.
These are the words that should echo in every Zambian’s ears.
“I will be president of all Zambians.”
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