By Fred M’membe
All of a sudden the Patriotic Front and its government have so much money to throw around to the Zambian voters. Where is this money coming from in a government that is embarrassingly failing to meet its debt servicing obligations? And why this sudden benevolence? All of a sudden people are being given all sorts of handouts and gifts! What has happened? It’s not what has happened that we should set our eyes and ears on but what is going to happen on August 12 that we should focus on. They are trying to buy our votes with money and ‘gifts’! But are we so gullible? Can these bribes blind us from seeing reality and make us vote for them despite the enormous damage they caused to our country? Are these really people we can trust to continue presiding over our destiny?
Our country is broke because of the reckless way they have been spending public funds. Something in the way that they have been handling public money isn’t working. Our issue isn’t just that our country doesn’t have enough money, but that when we got the money, they spent it recklessly. And they spent it on anything. Truly, 99 per cent of the troubles that we as a nation have with money isn’t that there isn’t enough of it, but in that, we spend it recklessly once we actually get it! What prompts a voter in Zambia to cast her ballot in favour of a candidate or political party? Typically, her choice would be influenced by the candidate’s identity, outlook, performance or ethnicity.
Cash bribes to voters are also widely thought to influence the voting choices of the poorest and most vulnerable voters.
Trying to buy votes with cash and other gifts in the run-up to elections by the ruling party is not unusual in Zambia. One main reason is that politics has become fiercely competitive. The margins of victory are getting smaller and smaller. Our elections have also become volatile. Our ruling parties do not control voters as well as they once might have done. Our ruling parties and candidates are more uncertain about results than ever before, and try to buy votes by splurging cash on voters. But our national experience is that bribing voters in general elections may not necessarily fetch votes. It works much more in by-elections but not in general elections.
Competitive elections prompt the ruling party to distribute handouts – primarily cash and gifts in kind – for strategic reasons. While knowing that handouts are largely inefficient, they end up facing a prisoner’s dilemma, when each prisoner’s fate relies on the other’s actions.
But as we saw in 2011 cash handouts and other gifts influenced a miniscule number of voters. Michael Sata’s ‘Don’t Kubeba’ worked! The voters have become astute, having realised that it was near-impossible for candidates and their political parties to “monitor” their voting behaviour. So they pocketed the cash and betrayed even the most generous candidate. But there seems to be an overwhelming belief in our ruling parties that they can buy votes of poor people. That’s why they bribe voters.
Bribing voters could have a cultural explanation. There’s a feeling that our poor voters appreciate wealthy or generous candidates. And that in a highly unequal society, cash bribes and gifts create a sense of reciprocity. We have a long history of patronage politics. Our voters have been made to expect feasts or handouts from candidates – tulyemo! Our electoral politics are increasingly being articulated in the traditional idiom of patronage. The donor-servant relation is increasingly becoming the basic formula through which people exchanged things, exercised power and related socially.
In specific historical contexts bribery may make elections less predictable, dissolving the existing ties by which the electorate are already bound to those seeking office, rather than reinforcing them. Bribery may be considered an evil because of secondary, knock-on affects. The need to bribe implies the need to raise money. This may take place by corrupt means, or may produce financial and/or political debts, which corrupt the behaviour of politicians when in office. It may be a way in which people outside the political process, whether legitimate businessmen or criminals, such as gangsters and drug-barons nowadays, seek to control it. If pursued on a vast scale, bribery may have unfortunate political consequences by dangerously expanding credit.
Moreover, if bribery is prevalent in elections, this will affect the perception of politics both by office-seekers and those who elect them. Office-seekers may come to despise the venality of an electorate, which may, unknown to them, be exercising a considerable degree of independent judgement; the electorate for its part may deduce from the bribes that it is offered, that those pursuing public office are merely self-seekers who are not concerned with the general interest of the public.
This is the reality we have to confront as we head towards August 12.
MONEY LAUNDERING, ECZ NEEDS TO LOOK INTO THIS.
The major bribes which ECZ is over looking is tee shirts, chitenges, and money. This must stop. But does this organization have the muscle to stop stealing of votes using people who cant afford to buy salaula, but a bribe in form of a tee shirt or chitenge will save them from the cold
All of a sudden the PF have so much money to throw around to the Zambian voters– and we have none
Ba Fred, so you don’t know that the PF has had a lot of money since they abandoned Taiwan and went to bed with their new found allies the Chinese?
It’s ok. Even you ba Fred can do the same.
Very emberrassing attitude towards national issues. You can choose to keep quiet when you have nothing to say.
True he just doesn’t have money
Peter Mongeza as simple as that
good piece fred
Good piece Fred
You guys have time to read such nonsense?
Ba Mmembe…tell your evil funders to give you money and start throwing it around…. Or maybe mulibe capable funders??
Sitali Simui good question ?
Sitali Simui good question ??
Fred M’membe is pretending here. He knows that the PF hv had a lot of money since forming government under Michael Sata. As opposition, the PF operated from a rented property but now own property while MMD even as government operated from rented property.
This is the only time people eat from politicians. Let people eat and you can join the donors community as well. Even Trump practiced that and ask him how it worked out for him.
Mofya Lukwesa, Trump is role model in nothing. Perhaps the only thing I agree with Trump is his attitude towards LGBT community and its so-called rights to serve in the USA armed forces. There Trump has got it right and his generals quietly agree. But if politicians impose it on the military they quietly obey but privately they grumble.
Instead of telling voters what your plans and policies are, this tax evader is busy accusing a party which has just shafted upnd in the by elections. My friend get a life
Ndalama zakuba sizi soba. When you have not worked and earned money in a rightful, it is easy to drop that money like anyhow
Told you that 2021, elections will be to the highest bidder.voters must benefit in any form and at all cost.
KZ Zambia defaulted on the debt payment.
It’s no rocket science that questions will be asked the way PF is throwing all this money by buying gifts and cash handouts. Wheres this money come from when the government can’t pay their dues.
I’ve said million times a thief had been put in charge of running this country. Since 2015 he has been busy stealing and amassing all this wealth.
Monkey like you will be caged
Scouser your father must be a gorillas red b.u.t.t0cks
Use Mast newspaper broda M’membe to reach your audience! Here we discuss serious business and not those jokes
The Worst thing is every Sundays they are seeing in some Church donating cash handouts to unsuspecting Church leaders and there congregants.Mwankole style
Ninshi you people do not understand that kwaliba ama funders?
Just tell you lesbian and Homosexuality funders to fund you Sir…stop complaining about People campaigning in peace
Just ask your funders to give you enough money to flash
YOU CAN ALSO THROW MONEY SO THAT WE CAN ENJOY IT…
I am an educated person but by the time I came to reading the last sentence, I was lost.
Kaizar Zulu (FAKE UK COUNCIL FLAT BOY)… YOU ARE SOOOOO PETTTTTTY…….. ICHIMUTWE!!!
This is a dull statement ?
Time to drain the swamp time moving faster than usual.
Watch “Air Kaloba – Who is to blame” on YouTube
People try to see fault in everything even when things are straight forward
This is shallow reasoning
@Fake KZ, someone needs to tell your parents their toddler is playing on the internet again. I can help them set the parental controls.
This man is still around???
Ba Mmembe and other opposition group you have nothing to offer the Zambia people except complaining every now and then
I tell you what …suddenly you will see them reduce fuel, stop load-shedding even reduce toll fees when they have been stealing from you all along and fooooools will celebrate that its a caring govt.
Our country is broke becoz stupid people like you have not been paying their taxes. You should be the last person to open your mouth Fred.
Ba Fred I thought you were clever. PF run the printing presses at BoZ so they can print Kwacha at will to give the electorates as bribes. You complaining just shows you how full you are. Yes PF has no money to pay debt because the debt is paid in US Dollars. But for Kwacha to throw around they can print it. The consequences will be Zimbabwe hyperinflation for everyone & supper higher prices for goods and services, the symptoms are already showing. That’s why I keep my money in Dollars.