To Defect or not to Defect

During a public finance lecture at the University of Zambia, my lecturer then Dr Mbita Chitala surprised all of us by declaring. “Being a deputy minister is the most useless job you can ever have”. 

The self-declaratory manner in which he made the statement made all of us sit up and look at him quizzically.  “you can’t make your own decisions, cannot sign contracts and you have to wait for the guy to be out of the country before you can act and that is only a few days at a time” Dr Chitala answered the look on our faces.

Dr Chitala had served as deputy minister of finance in the Movement for Multi-party Democracy (MMD) government under the late president Frederick Chiluba.  So he was speaking from experience. An experience he would not want to repeat it seemed.

It is therefore interesting that in this world of carrots and sticks, the Patriotic Front government has decided to dangle the “deputy ministerial” portfolio before Members of Parliament (MP) from the opposition. And it seems this particular carrot is proving irresistible with the country witnessing a number of defections (edit to read “defecations”) to the ruling party. In some cases like that of Chilanga MP (Keith Mukata), the MMD has simply turned a blind eye and deaf ear knowing very well that in the game of carrots and sticks it cannot win.

Some of the reasons advanced by opposition MPs for defecting are laughable. Take for example  the following:

• ·         I realize that I cannot adequately serve my people unless I am in government

o   This has to rank as a very stupid reason for defecting. To begin with, the moment you realized that your party had lost the presidency would have been the time to resign. You do not wait for a ministerial appointment to realize that your representation is inadequate. Is it not strange that your representation has now only become inadequate that you have been appointed deputy minister. Are you sure your decision has nothing to do with the “trappings” that come with a ministerial position (albeit a very useless one according to Dr Chitala), the car, the fuel and the free accommodation?

• ·         I have given this a long and hard thought. I have consulted widely with both family and friends and reluctantly come to the conclusion that…

o   I believe they are the same unreliable family and friends who initially advised you to go into politics and to join a particular political party. They are the same family and friends that helped you flash a particular party symbol, be it the V sign, stretched palm and whatever other party symbol has been contrived. If your friends had helped you really give the matter a  long and hard thought, you would have thought of all the money going to be spent on the by-election, you would have thought what a spineless individual you are, you would have thought of the potential injuries and sometimes lives lost as a result of the violence… need I go on. In the end you would have come to the conclusion that you are not serving the people but your belly and vain ambitions. In any case , although I am yet to carry a study, there is no evidence that ruling party MPs perform better than the opposition.

The point I hope we can reach as a country is to re-examine the role of party politics in our governance. For starters a few questions need to be addressed. Such as which entity should command a member’s loyalty. Is it the party on which ticket they stood or the people that voted the individual into parliament or both? If the MP’s allegiance is to the party, to what extent does it exercise its sanctioning power over the MP, to what extent is the behavior, outlook and disposition of the MP a reflection of his/her party’s values and what are the sanctions the moment there is variance?

If the MP’s primary allegiance is to the people that voted him/her into parliament then the questions above as they relate to the voters need to be answered. And in so doing, appropriate safeguards in the constitution need to be provided to ensure that the people have power over their MP to do their bidding and not anybody’s. If they want him to defect to another party, then he has no choice but to do their bidding and appropriate and less expensive means of achieving that need to be put in place.

The question I would like answered is: who do you vote for at parliamentary level? Is it the individual, in which case there is no need for a by-election even if they change parties.  A by-election will only be necessary in the event the individual dies. If however it is the party, the winning party should be allowed to nominate another member to take the place of the person who has defected. This sounds fair to me.

Let me emphasize that in both cases there is no by-election in the formula. The only time the need for a by-election arises is when the incumbent dies. Its probably too late now, but I wish our constitution would consider these issues. In the final analysis, by-elections should be the final/reluctant resort, when all other means have failed.