By Mark Simuuwe | For purposes of this write up, Political party Conditioning of a party is where members of a political party are encouraged to think about politics within specific frames, frames determined by the party to which they belong (Lilleker, 2014).
I have seen Patriotic Front (PF) members and semi-leaders blaming the PF loss in the just ended by-elections on disunity, challenges and infighting.
In my view, the loss has nothing to do with disunity alone. It has everything to do with failing to understand the elephant in the room.
The elephant in the room of PF is failure to understand how PF was formed and its composition, and failure to respect technocrats. As President Micheal Sata once said , “ without me, there would be a vacuum in PF”- Sata , as quoted in the Postnewspaper of about 19th July 2006.
In PF, they have no respect for the educated . This is the biggest weakness . They respect experience more than education . This is PF’s number one enemy and this is why they cannot race with parties based on a combination of education and experience.
In PF they believe that the educated and uneducated think the same way in politics- Which is a serious misnomer. This is also common in many political parties that some people think having been using insults , walking around to Mobilize and campaigning for many in years is understanding politics. Politics go beyond that because you are confronted with new situations everytime . This is why political parties come and soon get ejected in Africa .
They do not realize that there is organizational behavior which is clearly academic and is need based . The need to know is what is academic and needs technocrats to ascertain or research.
There is an educational component on management of human beings and sustainability of organizations .
This is why many political parties in Europe , Asia and USA have continued to outlive their leaders . When you look at USA political parties , there is always a group of technocrats behind the Republicans and Democrats .
The same is the case with the Communist Party of China (CPC – it has serious technocrats behind the party . Some of us have had an opportunity to study Chinese politics at Peking University to better understand their politics.
In PF, there is total dependency on experience which normally focuses on outdated politics of listening mostly to PF from the street for solutions. Use of noise, insults and daring, use of pride and force as a way of getting power is what characterize the PF.
On the unity semi-leaders like Miles Sampa are calling for, PF can never be united . You need to clear your political conscience to understand how PF was formed and what kind of members it has .
When you look at the quote for Sata above, President Sata knew what kind of members surrounded him and what kind of political appetite they possessed. Herein lies the problem. Some believe because they rubbed shoulders with Sata , then they have what it takes to manage the party . It is not a matter of having been there at the inception of PF , but how you understand political dynamics of the country.
There are too many proud leaders not wanting to let go and run under the other and that this is another weakness of PF .
In politics, you can only have one leader at a time; PF has so many leaders … most of them too proud to accept to be led .
Just as stated on the aspect of how PF views the educated, where they put political experience ahead of education and this is dangerous in modern politics. Education makes you think fast and creative . Make no mistake about it.
I am not talking of the kind of education where you simply acquire papers and take yourself as equals with those who dedicated all their time to education when they were less busy with other things; am talking of the kind of education where school and books was your only occupation; the two are different for us who have been academicians .
So those who are educated are looked down upon as theorists, thus failing to race with parties like UPND with so many thinkers .
You don’t use experience alone in politics because you are confronted with new challenges that require think-tanks.
The educated in PF can’t go anywhere in politics – they have to think above board to realize that PF is made of experience not education. The earlier the educated move out PF the better . PF can’t even rebrand – it is impossible because of the type of elements and beliefs it holds .
Solution to such crop of politicians is dissolution and new political parties formed with technocrats. The educated in PF are a laughing stock . They have been conditioned . Many of them understand what I mean by conditioning . They have been made to start thinking at the same rate with illiterates . They need to come out of PF conditioning !
It is this conditioning some of us have rejected in politics so that we are able to think independently. We support an idea when we know we have enough points on it.