Thursday 4 August 2016

GUY SCOTT: The Man Who Helped Sail The Boat of The Patriotic Front


Perhaps this was the highlight of his political career or maybe there is still more to see but in October 2014 Guy Scott made history by becoming the first white man post colonialism to lead an African nation. His stint at the helm of the Zambian government was short but eventful.

Guy Scott had ascended to the Zambian presidency after the demise of President Michael Sata who had died in a London hospital after an illness. Scott’s appointment to the presidency won the country praise from the international community but this soon frazzled as the wrangles in the Patriotic Front and the government deepened. The praise was soon replaced by a fear in the international community that Zambia’s democracy was not stable and leaning on the verge of a meltdown. Was this man now in charge of the country trustworthy enough to keep it from gliding into political turmoil characteristic of African nations? This was something the whole world was watching closely.

 

For decades Guy Scott had been a popular figure on the Zambian political scene. He had served in the MMD government as Minister of Agriculture and saw the country through the worst drought experienced in the Southern African region, ‘the whole of southern Africa was going hungry but not Zambia, we brought in maize from everywhere and had enough to eat and feed our neighbouring countries’ he later says. Years later Scott joined Michael Sata in the Patriotic front which later ousted the MMD from power in 2011. All things being equal, Scott was the rightful person to carry on after Sata’s death as he had served as the Vice President of the country for the years the Patriotic Front had been in power under President Sata. But article 34 of the Zambian constitution would not have it that way, it stated clearly, ‘A Zambian presidential candidate must have both parents who are Zambian by birth or decent.’ The clause, widely believed to have been included in the constitution by the then President Chiluba to prevent Kenneth Kaunda from contesting the 1996 elections was the main argument for those who opposed Scott’s appointment as Acting President, this and the fact that President Sata had left Edgar Lungu in charge of the nation’s affairs on his final trip abroad for medical attention. (It is also interesting to note that if this clause had existed in the American constitution, Barack Obama would never have become the president of the United States of America.)

However, Article 34 was challenged by another in the constitution, Article 39 which states, ‘Whenever the President is absent from Zambia or considers it desirable to do so by reason of illness or any other cause, he may by direction in writing, authorize the Vice President or where the Vice President is absent from Zambia or incapable of discharging the functions of the office of the president, any other person to discharge such functions of the office of the office of the President as he may specify...’

After a brief scuffle on which article of the constitution rightly applied to Scott, Article 39 of the constitution won the tug of war and Guy Scott was appointed Acting President of the Republic of Zambia.  

 

Ninety days after on January twentieth, the nation went to the polls. Peacefully Zambians cast their votes and after a tightly contested election between the Patriotic Front’s candidate Edgar Lungu and the UPND’s Hakainde Hichilema, Edgar Lungu emerged victorious and was sworn in five days later. After Lungu’s inauguration, Scott but all faded into the background of the nation’s politics. Will we see him again on the political scene? That is something we have to wait and see.

I speak to him now on a Saturday morning. Scott sits relaxed on a sofa, comfortable in a maroon golf shirt and a pair of shorts despite the stinging cold weather. Behind him is a painting of a crowd gathered, lifting their hands in praise and affirmation of whatever is being said and facing a podium where a few men stand. No doubt this is a political rally.

I ask my first question and he takes a sip of his coffee before he responds. He begins with a little history.

When the Patriotic front was still in infancy, people wondered why an educated man like you was joining Michael Sata in the Patriotic Front. What made you decide to join Sata in the PF?

In 1990 Kaunda agreed to install multiparty democracy. I was in oxford teaching and somebody phoned me in the middle of the night and told me there was going to be a multiparty state. My feeling is that Zambia is ruined by bad governance. Multiparty democracy was a chance to get literate governance in Zambia. I thought that with my technical knowledge and entire education levels, I could do something. So I came back. We went to the convention in April 1991. There were a lot of people, academicians and politicians like Mr. Sata who had crossed from UNIP and we formed a committee. I became Chairman of Agriculture and Sata became Chairman of Local Government. It was the first time to meet Michael and we got on very well. We campaigned for Chiluba, for the MMD in 1991. We won. Chiluba made me Minister of Agriculture and Michael Minister of Local Government. Michael remained and I was fired. Then we got to the third term. People started leaving and forming parties. Michael by this time was National Secretary of the party and his job was to organize the convention at which the matter of the third term would be discussed. He didn’t want to leave because he thought that if these other people have left, then its better I stay put here and take the job myself when Chiluba eventually realises that the people of Zambia were not going to accept him for a third term. Michael realized that his best chance was staying in the MMD so he organized the Mulungushi convention. Then Chiluba dribbled Michael and had chosen Mwanawasa. Michael meanwhile had started forming the P.F and he called me up and said, ‘come here,’ and we were in the P.F.

In the early years of the P.F, how did other members respond to you being the Vice President of the party?

No problem. The general population has never even provided any journalist with a vox pop. You can go and stand in the street with your microphone and say, ‘what do you think of having a white Vice President?’ They will say, ‘who cares what colour the Vice President is? We know him, we like him, he has fought for that position.’ They used to come (alot of foreign journalists) and say let us go and do a vox pop and get negative opinions. They were very little negative opinions from the general population. This is different. Politics is different. You will use anything you can find on the ground. So if you are going to discredit the Vice President for any reason, you will say he is the son of colonialists. That is how politics is and even then it didn’t work. People said we love you, carry on with what you are doing.

When the P.F finally won the elections, you never acted as President when President Sata left the country, was there an initial agreement for that?

Yes. It was agreed right at the beginning and Michael took all the advice. As you know, there was a lot of Kafwafwa with people going to court and asking for injunctions when it finally happened. Michael knew some opposition parties had a case prepared against the government the first time I was put in as Acting President. I acted a few times without anybody knowing because he didn’t even bother to do the paper work. This is a very litigious society and UPND I understand had a whole dossier that if I became Acting President they would run to court. That would have been a nuisance because Michael would have been in Japan or New York and would have found himself having to fly back and we didn’t want an unstable situation and Michael maybe didn’t want to give ammunition to the opposition. But of course he couldn’t remove me as Vice President when people advised him. When people tried to tell him that he should remove Guy as Vice President otherwise he will become President, he would say, ‘what’s wrong with that? He has a high hand, he is just like me.’

When you were first informed that you had been appointed as the Acting President, what were your first thoughts?

My first thoughts were that it’s going to be a fight because people fear I am going to try and interfere with their choice. When it comes to doing things properly, you have to consult the constitution. That meeting we had in Kabwe whether you say it was properly conducted or not was demanded by the constitution. There was no option, there was no choice. There was some nastiness, some attempts to threaten but I didn’t pay them any ear.

During the 90 days you acted as President, it was a volatile period in Zambia, how did you manage to keep the country stable and functioning during that time?

The credit is due to the Zambian people but I had to speak to them. I was on television nearly every day saying we have reached this stage and it’s going to be okay. The hot air was coming from the social media. There were a lot of attempts to disrupt the process but I think we did okay. We did the common sense thing. I don’t want a war, who wants a war.

Looking back at one of your first actions as Acting President of relieving the current President of his Duties in government and as Secretary General of the P.F and later reinstating him, how do you think it affected your image as a leader? Do you think it somehow reflected you were indecisive as a leader?

A credible leader is more than one event. It was an attempt to neutral the situation because I knew he (Lungu) wanted to stand and I was of the view that if someone wants to stand, you have to give up your post and that was a difference of opinion. The question was if you are going to stand as we have heard from everybody, then how can you actually be allowed to run the administration of the same election you are participating in? I was persuaded to withdraw that, we hadn’t even buried Michael yet. So that was what I did. There is no point sticking to opposition if you know it is going to lead to unrest. There were people saying the constitution should be different but that’s completely irrelevant. What the constitution says is you go and have a big election conducted properly and choose the party’s candidate. My only defence was this is the constitution of the party and the country.

After your very public reconciliation with the current President, how would you describe your relationship with him now?

The relations I wouldn’t say are very warm but aren’t at a point where there is any conflict. He is the President and he has the choice if he doesn’t want me as anything in his government. That’s fine. If he has to offer me a job, I have to be convinced I can do it freely, responsibly. I have a lot of work to do. All I am doing is working with my constituency at the moment. Like other people that have put everything they have in the P.F, I am interested to see where it goes.

Being the first white President of an African country, did you have support from other African Presidents during your time in office?

Yes. I talked to all sorts of people and told them everything was under control. Mugabe knows me and I was a member of his party in the early 1960’s. A lot of people sent me best wishes. People I had never even talked to sent me telegrams saying keep going. It was historic.

What is your opinion on article 34 of the Zambian constitution which bars anyone from contesting the presidency whose parents are not Zambian by origin?

 I think it is a stupid provision. Zambians decide who they trust and who they don’t trust. I mean of course if you are not even a Zambia citizen it’s a problematic issue. Why should you want to stand if you are not a citizen? If you have taken your choice that I am now a citizen, why should you now create two classes of citizens, ones who can take the job and ones who can’t take the job?

 What would you say was your greatest achievement in government under the P.F as Vice President and Acting President?

 I can say we did what we set out to do in a short period of time. My greatest achievement is to try and get these systems working again. The office of the Vice President is the only office that has the authority, the clout to bring together and say, what is our policy on this? If you take any problem in Zambia like the small problem we had with yellow fever policy, there was a lot of nonsense from the technical point of view and to get that fixed we had to hold a number of meetings. You need to bring people together and manage everything. A lot of the serious hard work was to bring back in the Zambian administration properly convened cross party groups.

I hear you are writing a book, is that true?

Yes.

Finally, what would you like your legacy to be?

My legacy is that Zambia moved ahead and not in a circle and of course like Barack Obama said, ‘the problem is I can’t help it, I will be remembered by the first thing I did and the first thing I did was that I was the first black to become President of the USA and there is nothing I can do now that can top that,’ and I have the same issue, I was the first white Acting President, how can I top that? Everyone in the world was reading that story.

Photo Credit: Lyandu Photography

Tuesday 2 August 2016

Once Upon a Time..


Once upon a time, there was us...  

Young and free. Carefree and safe from the worlds harm and its all grief. Engrossed with children’s things and children’s play. Happy feet and full bellies.

We could have been anything we dared to imagine, even that beyond the scope of our dreams. But now, after years that were unkind to us both, you are gone.

We chose different paths you and I, although to be fair there were only two paths to choose; one of self inflicted pain and the other of Godly healing and self discovery.

And now I am now left wondering where along the way we left you behind? At which point exactly could we have picked you up, if ever we had such a chance.

I wishes and what could have been have slipped from me, in the very same way water slips through one’s fingers. What is left is the cold harsh reality that six feet below the earth, your body lies stiff and cold together with all your hopes and dreams and everything else you could have been.

But the promise of eternal life ignites comfort in my heart; that though your body lies in darkness, your soul rests in God’s arms, a better place than what you left behind.

And when all is said and done or there is little much left to say, the only thing that makes sense to be said is rest in peace and  until we meet again at those glorious pearly gates.