The appointment of Maureen Mwanawasa as HH’s right hand woman or advisor obliterates all other issues — UPND is almost entirely about Bantu Botatwe. With all the back-and-forth discussion by Chilufya Tayali accusing UPND of being entirely a Bantu Botatwe, I am inclined to agree with Tayali on this issue.
You go to Luapula, Northern and Coppebelt provinces; you will see people festooned in UPND t-shirts and chitenge materials. Go to Tonga land, all you will see is a sea of UPND attire. Does critical thinking and self-criticism exist in Tonga culture? If UPND is running on the platform of fostering quality political ideas to the entire nation, how is it that Tongas simply assert everything HH says or UPND stands for, and not on the basis of reasoning things out on the basis of evidence and good reasons? GBM hails from Northern Province, once served in PF and defected to UPND on the basis of good reasoning arguments he made against PF. Which party do Tongas who differ with one another on the basis of critical thinking join?
There are no Tonga’s who quit UPND to join other parties. Tongas quit other parties to join UPND. Again I said I was going to argue logically with well supported evidence. The late president Levy Mwanawasa was a Lamba from Copperbelt, and his wife former first lady Maureen is a Lenje/Ila/Tonga from Central Province. On November 3, 2003 The Post headline read; Levy is encouraging defections-UPND President Sikota. Then UPND acting president Sakwiba Sikota accused Levy of weakening the opposition parties by encouraging defections, when six Mwembeshi counselors defected to join then ruling MMD party. Well you know HH is now president and Sikota was horned out.
Fast forward when Levy died it was attributed to Maureen that she wanted HH to finish her late husband’s term. She didn’t think Rupiah Banda and Sata who labored and contributed greatly the country and MMD were qualified to finish Levy’s term. So how is it that Maureen who was first lady under MMD has joined UPND a party her husband never cared for? If she wants to develop Zambia through politics, why hasn’t she remained in MMD since it’s not a party of Bembas only? Why has she joined HH with zero political accomplishment under his belt, when there tones of parties run by politicians who did so much to the country? And if Maureen cares about gender issues, why hasn’t she partnered with Nawakwi’s FDD, since she is also a former MMD and served in her husband’s party.
I don’t like Tayali for many reasons, one of which he doesn’t keep his ‘little man’ in his trousers. But Tayali’s argument that HH is a career politician loser because Bantu Botatwes don’t know that they lack critical thinking skills needed to woo younger educated voters and diversify the party makes a lot of sense. As a woman married and a teacher by profession, I find Maureen an example of how education does little to cleanse one of tribal thinking when it is politics ingrained in them that they are inferior to other tribes.
From Maureen’s colossal political blunder of joining a party purely on tribal affiliation, I am teaching boys and girls how one of the most important distinctions that parents and teachers need to routinely make, and which takes disciplined thinking to make, is that between critical reasoning and subjective reaction-which lurks powerfully under HH and Maureen’s skin and all Bantu Botatwe UPNDs.
Mrs. Mushinge Mweetwa (primary school teacher in Southern Province).
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