[Civsoc-mw] Zambia - who saw it coming!?

[Diana Cammack]

Foreign Policy

 

Zambia went from a free and stable country to a dictatorship overnight. I
covered it for the country's only independent newspaper - until the
government shut it down.

 

    By Ernest Chanda

    August 3, 2017

 

How to Gut a Democracy in Two Years

 

LUSAKA, Zambia - The slide toward dictatorship was abrupt. Two and a half
years ago, Zambia was one of Africa's most stable democracies, a place so
functional that it rarely made international headlines. Now it is "all,
except in designation, a dictatorship," according to the country's
influential Conference of Catholic Bishops. And that was before a state of
emergency was declared in July, granting President Edgar Lungu sweeping
powers of arrest and detention as his government grapples with a string of
alleged arson attacks it blames on the political opposition.

 

Lungu, who narrowly won reelection last year, has moved forcefully to
sideline his opponents. In April, his government detained opposition leader
Hakainde Hichilema on what many believe to be trumped-up treason charges.
Two months later, 48 opposition parliamentarians were suspended after they
refused to attend the president's State of the Nation address. Last month,
those same parliamentarians could do little more than abstain as the
legislature rubber-stamped Lungu's state of emergency declaration, which
grants law enforcement "enhanced measures" to curb what the president has
described as actions " bordering on economic sabotage." (To date, the
government has produced no concrete evidence of sabotage, although it claims
to have arrested 12 people in connection with the alleged arson attacks.)

 

The state of emergency measure, which passed with 85 votes from the
president's party, seems designed to justify additional acts of repression.
As it was being debated, in fact, two government ministers reportedly called
on police to shoot dead anyone found near power installations - thought to
be potential targets for sabotage - during the state of emergency, instead
of arresting and prosecuting them. Gary Nkombo, the opposition's chief whip,
described the comments by the two cabinet members as "an assault on our
democratic credentials" and "disappointing to have come from people's
representatives."

 

The first signs that trouble was brewing in Zambia came soon after Lungu
ascended to the presidency in a January 2015 election that followed
President Michael Sata's death in office. In his inaugural speech, he came
out strongly against his opponents, and vowed not to tolerate what he termed
unnecessary criticism. Lungu, who served concurrently as minister of defense
and minister of justice in Sata's government, seemed paranoid from the
start. He lashed out at enemies, real and perceived, and used the police and
officials from his party to harass them. He also engineered the dismissal of
the country's respected public prosecutor, Mutembo Nchito, prompting critics
to warn that he was eroding the separation of powers enshrined in Zambia's
constitution.

 

Things got markedly worse in the lead-up to the August 2016 general
election, which pitted Lungu against Hichilema, an accomplished businessman
and economist. Lungu's supporters brutalized members of the opposition,
religious groups, and civil society organizations. They attacked Hichilema's
political rallies in Lusaka and in Zambia's Copperbelt Province, areas with
the most voters. At a campaign rally in Lusaka in June, Lungu warned
Hichilema not to dispute the results of the election, threatening
unspecified consequences if he did. "If [Hichilema] refuses to accept the
results," he said in the local Bemba dialect, "he will see what I will do to
him."

 

Later, in July, the police cancelled one of Hichilema's rallies in Lusaka's
Chawama Township, claiming they lacked manpower to secure the event. His
supporters were incensed and they started protesting in the central business
district. In the process, police confronted them and shot dead one female
supporter, Mapenzi Chibulo. Later, Hichilema's campaign billboards were torn
down and replaced by posters of Lungu.

 

As tensions mounted in the final months of the campaign, Lungu's government
shut down the country's only independent newspaper, the Post, ostensibly
over a delinquent tax bill. For 25 years, the Post had been one of Zambia's
most outspoken media organs, providing critical coverage of the government
and the opposition alike. Its closure was "clearly designed to silence
critical media voices," the rights group Amnesty International said at the
time.

 

On election day, the Post's downtown headquarters remained shuttered,
although the paper's staff managed to publish an abbreviated edition from an
undisclosed location (it continued to publish in secret for months, but has
since stopped). Lungu prevailed by a razor-thin margin - 13,000 more votes
for Hichilema and it would have gone to a run-off; the opposition rejected
the result, claiming that the government had intimidated voters and rigged
the ballot. Hichilema petitioned the Constitutional Court, but there was
never a full hearing and the judges ruled in favor of Lungu - after his
supporters camped out on the court premises and members of his party posted
menacing messages on social media.

 

In office, Lungu has silenced anyone who questioned the legitimacy of his
presidency. In September, for example, his government pressured the
country's regulatory body for electronic media, the Independent Broadcasting
Authority, to shut down the biggest private television station, Muvi TV, and
two community radio stations, claiming that they had operated
unprofessionally during the campaign period. In fact, all they had done was
air the opposition's point of view throughout the crisis.

 

Then in March, Lungu's supporters protested outside the offices of the Law
Association of Zambia, the country's main bar association. They denounced
the association's president, Linda Kasonde, calling for her resignation and
for the dissolution of the body. Lungu's supporters claimed that the
organization, like Muvi TV and the two radio stations, had become
unprofessional. What it had done was offer guidance as to the
constitutionality of Hichilema's petition - guidance that conflicted with
Lungu's and his party's position. Later that month, a member of parliament
from the president's party tabled a private bill to abolish the law
association. After a public outcry, the bill was not debated in the last
sitting of parliament, but it is still pending.

 

In addition to attacking Zambia's most trusted independent institutions,
Lungu moved to neutralize the opposition. On the night of April 10, armed
police raided Hichilema's residence. They tear-gassed the premises and broke
down doors and windows. They picked up Hichilema the same night, and the
following day he was officially charged with treason for obstructing the
president's motorcade two days earlier in Mongu, a rural district in western
Zambia. Both Hichilema and Lungu had been in the area to attend an annual
traditional ceremony organized by the Lozi ethnic group. Hichilema spent two
months in detention at Lusaka Central Prison before being moved to a
maximum-security prison in Kabwe, north of Lusaka. His trial is due to start
on Aug. 14.

 

The international response to Hichilema's arrest - and to Zambia's slide
toward authoritarianism in general - has been remarkably muted. No current
African head of state condemned Hichilema's arrest, and Western powers were
mostly circumspect. In an April 13 statement, for example, the U.S. Embassy
in Lusaka said only that it remained "concerned over heightened political
tension in Zambia, specifically noting the April 10 police raid of
opposition leader Hakainde Hichilema's Lusaka residence and his subsequent
arrest for treason." It urged "all actors to exercise restraint in
addressing differences, to respect the rule of law and electoral
proceedings, and to follow the due process Zambians expect from a country
with a reputation for political pluralism and peaceful conflict resolution."
China, one of Zambia's most important donors, has unsurprisingly refrained
from criticizing Lungu's government throughout the crisis.

 

Lungu's government is in negotiations with the International Monetary Fund
for a $1.3 billion aid package that could revitalize the country's flagging
economy. Asked by a journalist if the state of emergency would negatively
affect these negotiations, Lungu challenged the IMF to pull out if they were
not happy with his decision. "If the IMF feels we have gone beyond the norms
of good governance, they are free to go. I am sure the IMF would like to
come to a country which is stable. If they think I have gone astray, let
them go," he said.

 

With the opposition leader behind bars, and the press and civil society
organizations muzzled, many fear that the state of emergency will sweep away
the few democratic safeguards that remain. Lungu has defended the measure on
the basis that it is necessary to preserve peace and stability. "This is not
an easy decision to make," Lungu said in a televised address to the nation
on July 5, "but in order to preserve peace, tranquility, safety of our
citizens and national security, we had no choice but to take this decision
given the events that have occurred in the recent past." Given that his
government has produced no evidence of a conspiracy to sow chaos, save for
the 12 people his government claims to have arrested since the state of
emergency went into effect, few Zambians are convinced.

 

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