Who is funding UNZASU elections

ZANASU Opinion: De-politicising the University of Zambia

The University of Zambia (UNZA) will hold its UNZASU elections on 9th November, 2018 in which students will elect their new leaders for the Students’ Union. One big question the public – especially our colleagues from the media – should ask is, who is funding the students who are running for these elections at UNZA?

This singular question is very important because whenever demonstrations and riots break out at the University of Zambia and other public universities, politicians and law enforcement agencies swing into a blame-game in which it is always alleged that these demonstrations are caused by politicians. One finger points to the opposition while the other points back to the ruling party in what others have termed acts of self-sabotage.

Exactly a month ago, UNZA students demonstrated because government had failed to pay them the K22.50 (approximately $1.96) daily meal allowance they desperately needed for sustenance for 67 days. The demonstrations saw Minister of Higher Education, Professor Nkandu Luo, address Parliament alleging that a known opposition party funded the demonstration. There is also a theory that some known donor, through an anti-government civil society organisation, funded students who were mourning their fellow student, Verspers Shimunzhila, who died as a result of alleged suffocation.

Students who struggled to get $1.96 have seen millions of kwacha pouring into elections for UNZASU

Just a few months from that demonstration, students who struggled to get $1.96 have seen millions of kwacha pouring into elections for UNZASU. Students who are candidates in the UNZASU elections are spending thousands to millions of Kwacha to campaign so they could be voted into office as student leaders. The question which our law enforcement, intelligence wings and students from UNZA who will turn up to vote do not want to ask is, who is funding these student aspirants and what is motivating them to fund students so heavily?

This reminds us of the 2011 General Elections where President Rupiah Banda and the Movement for Multi-party Democracy (MMD) had printed branded pants, sweets, and dressed trees with chitenge materials. The country turned blue. On the other hand, the Patriotic Front (PF), had less or just moderate resources to spend and if election materials were a determinant of who wins elections, Rupiah Banda and MMD were the winner of the 2011 elections. But we all know who won national elections in 2011, anyway.

We have no doubt that no one wants to ask that question as to who is funding students running University of Zambia Student’s Union (UNZASU) – not the President of the Republic of Zambia, His Excellency President Edgar C. Lungu; not the Minister of Higher Education, Hon. Professor Nkandu Luo; not the Inspector General of Police Kakoma Kanganja whose men have to bear with unpopular directives and the tasks of finding culprits behind those funding student demonstrations. Not even our members of Parliament are interested in finding out this question as a way to prevent future blame games.

There is nothing wrong with funding students to run for elections. In countries like South Africa, the political parties battleground begins with who wins student elections at universities to who wins to control the students’ umbrella body. The Africa National Congress (ANC) and Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) are currently battling to have this control. But where we have no laws such an in Zambia, which stop political parties funding students, it’s important that those funding students ought to do so openly.

We have no doubt in our mind that our politicians – from both the ruling and opposition parties – are funding these elections at UNZA. If our students were battling for $1.96 yesterday, it is not possible that they had been making savings running into thousands to millions into sponsoring their elections for UNZASU. When we ran for elections in ZANASU, the funding of those elections were very transparent. Our predecessors have records of which institutions paid the K700 participation fee in those elections and the source of the money was known.

We raise this question not because we do not want political parties – ruling or opposition – to help students who are running for office but because we believe that the allegations that one political party has been financing student demonstrations cannot be taken lightly. There is always a connection between future activities at these institutions of higher learning with activities of those funders of student leaders elected into office. If our law enforcement agencies want to have an easy task of policing and are genuinely concerned about making their work easier in preventing future occurrences of riots, they must first find out who is funding these students’ candidates.

Those who are pouring thousands of kwachas into UNZASU elections are no different from those who funded RB or who fund our current politics that cost millions and millions of Kwacha. However, we worried about whether these are kind of politics of money they want to inculcate in our students. What kind of future politicians are we creating by this kind of politics where leaders ought to buy votes for them to get into leadership? We are, however, comforted when we look back to 2011 that despite pouring millions into his campaigns, RB never won the vote. Students from UNZA are very intelligent and soon or later they will begin to think whether the lavish spending on them by sponsored students will live to see another day after those elections. We encourage UNZA students to vote wisely.

Our position as Zambia National Students Union (ZANASU) is simple: Zambia needs a law to depoliticise our institutions of higher learning. The right to belong to a political party of one’s choice is a constitutionally protected right which even civil servants enjoy yet they cannot form branches in the civil service the way we now have our higher learning institutions with UNZA-PF, Hone-NAREP, CBU-UPND.

We shall thus be sponsoring a motion in Parliament to help depoliticise our institutions of higher learning. We shall see among our ruling or opposition parties in Parliament who will oppose this motion and the public will then draw its own conclusions as to who is behind the funding of students’ union candidates in our higher institutions of learning

In the meantime, if our Republican President Mr. Edgar Lungu is also genuinely concerned with politicisation of institutions of higher learning, he should have asked for a thorough investigation into who is funding students running for leadership at UNZA and make the findings public. De-politicisation of our institutions of higher learning requires real political will and commitment than mere words from our leaders – both in government and in the opposition.