<TITLE: African Development History 1: Democratisation in Zambia's Third Republic
ACADEMIC DOMAIN: social sciences
DISCIPLINE: political history
EVENT TYPE: seminar presentation
FILE ID: USEMP11A
NOTES: continuation of and continued in USEMD26A, seminar also includes presentation USEMP11B (USEMD26B and USEMP11C are part of the same course), presentation partially read from notes

RECORDING DURATION: 17 min 47 sec

RECORDING DATE: 3.4.2007

NUMBER OF PARTICIPANTS: 18

NUMBER OF SPEAKERS: 2

S1: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: German; ACADEMIC ROLE: junior staff and research student; GENDER: male; AGE: 31-50

S4: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: Czech, Polish; ACADEMIC ROLE: undergraduate; GENDER: male; AGE: 17-23

SS: several simultaneous speakers>


<S1> please the [floor is yours] </S1>
<S4> [okay so] er about democratisation er talking about democratisation in zambia we can find many aspects er which we can use to evaluate this process but for my presentation i have chosen the political issue and especially the development and evaluation of political parties so first i would like to say about er evaluation of political system at a whole as a whole er the political er system in zambia has a framework of presidential representative democratic republic the presidential the president of zambia is both the head er of state and head of government in a multiform multiparty system executive power is exercised by government and legislative power is ensured by both the government and parliament zambia became a republic in october 196- er 64 when it attains er its independence in 1990 er zambia switched from one-party to multiparty system although there were expectations that in zambia the transition from one to multiparty rule will result in a highly fragmented party system it did not occur finally only a predominant er party system emerged and talking about parliamentary elections er since re-democratisation the country has been divided into er 150 single member constituencies the candidate er with the highest number of valid votes votes cast is elected so it's like a simple majority and because of the fragmented nature of the opposition in third republic the plurality electoral system used in conjunction with single member constituencies er has tended to work er in favour of the ruling party for presidential elections in 1991 an absolute majority was used but in 1996 er the majority system was abolished and replaced b- by a plurality system the reason was that the president was afraid of the oppositioned er opposition and majority system advanced advantaged er the majority party the major party moreover the president has the power to nominate er an additional ten members of parliament in this matter he of course er picks member of his own party . er the transition from the second republic into the third one was relatively quick and peaceful and according to er researchers erdman and simutanyi they are mentioned in my bibliography er we can find at least five factors er why it was so so er first er the character of the authoritarian regime was relatively open and the one-party system competitive it also managed to control all dissidents then er the opposition movement was politically er politically united the opposition was also relatively strong because of well-organised political force the trade-unions movement and in particular the mine-workers who could have brought er the country's economy to a halt fourth aspect another factor er is an independence of two state institutions like a court er which ruled in some cases against the government and and electoral commission which was able to provide er for free and fair elections the last aspect there is a leadership of kenneth kaunda who believed in some sort of legitimate power , now some general definition of parties in a multiparty liberal setting which er was declared in zambia it is through political parties that citizens are offered choice between alternative political leadership and policies it was als- it also gives an opportunity to compete for power nevertheless er for multiparty democracy to work well strong competitive parties are required and the competition itself must be fair but the party system in zambia is generally weak er the de jure one-party system has simply been replaced by one-party dominant regime and not by multiparty system we can also say that er political parties in zambia are quite similar to each other and it's a little bit hard to find difference differences as a reason we can consider a formation of er small parties er which separated from the major party er only because of single contradiction in some issue er in case of third republic it was this er MMD i will talk about it about abo- i will talk about er those parties these parties later , now we can ask er this question er what is the issue according to which people vote the party er when they are somehow similar to each other and the major party has great influence over them if we use figures from the research about zambia we can find tha- that er more than 60 per cent of zambians do not feel affiliated to any political party the finding is that er people can rather vote for a candidate than for a party which they will affiliate with er this is why political parties tend to be centred on personalities and not not on programmes , inter-party and intra-party politics are generally characterised by intolerance er with political parties rigid political parties members er with dissenting views and those who have been perceived to har- harbour ambitions of challenging current leaders have been expelled when it comes to choosing candidates for parliamentary elections the tendency for top party organs is to impose candidates on local constituents in the 1996 elections er this led to a number of locally popular candidates defying their parties and standing as indede- independent candidates expelled from these parties in presidential elections the possibility of standing as independent candidate er is not available it's because of restric- some restrict er in the constitution , now i would like to mention er three parties i found er quite important for my presentation the first one is the movement for a multiparty democracy it's the major party of er third republic in zambia in 1990 er it became a growing opposition to er united national independence party er shortly UNIP er the party rose because of food shortages and a general economic decline in the country it began as a coalition party with the specific goal of ousting UNIP er gradually it set up an increasingly impressive group of important zambians including prominent UNIP defectors and labour rea- leaders in the same year 1990 er the president kaunda was pushed by internal and also international pressure and agreed to a referendum er on the one-party state but finally thanks to to the opposition he dropped the referendum and signed a constitutional amendment er making zambia a multiparty state , the result of the er popular popular struggles er that led to the fall of the par- one-party state was to give a lands- landslide electoral victory er to the MMD which led the forces of change the MMD again won in the controversial legis- legislative and presidential polls of er 96 and however results indicated support for MMD has ha- but er no wrong er results indicated that the support for MMD had er weakened in er some er provinces of zambia compared er to its electoral permin- pre- performance in 91 , er the movement for multiparty democracy could be classified as a broad movement with er different social groups for example trade-unionists intellectuals professional groups church-leaders and businessmen erm but the only reason of their unity was an attempt to get rid of the one-party regime and president kenneth kaunda finally some internal problems occurred small split-offs emerged and those who did not agree with the r- ruling party founded their own political parties , er next one is the national in- er the united national independence party which played its its role before the third republic it governed the country from 19 er 64 to 1991 under the presidency of kaunda the constitution from 1973 established a one-party er participatory democracy where the UNIP was the ruling party as i have mentioned before in december 90 1990 er president kaunda signed this legislation ending er UNIP's monopoly on power and the changed constitution allowed for more than one presidential candidate who no longer had to be a member of UNIP the party lost er power to frederick chiluba of the MMD in 1991 and has became increasingly marginalised er as a party in zambia as the last one is this UPND the united party for national development is er a liberal political party it was formed in december 98 by anderson mazoka who was the party leader in the presidential elections of december 2001 mazoka er finished in the second place with little bit more than er 23 per cent of vote during the legislative elections held er in december 2001 the party won 23 per cent of popular votes and er it was er 49 out of er 150 seats it made them the second largest party in zambia their campaign focused on issues of access to free education and health care , er party formation in zambia's third republic er there were two waves of party formation as i said before er some split-offs could be seen in MMD during 1990s during this period the national party in 93 zambia democratic congress in 95 and agenda for zambia in 96 were established but nevertheless er these parties had no impact on the party system the first party which was able to develop er into a strong opposition was the united party of national development formed in er 98 the second wave of party formation in the run-up er to the 2001 elections centred on the controversy regarding chiluba's attempt to extend his er second term of office into the third term which would had er have required a change of the constitution but still the main parts of new parties were formed er by groups which left the MMD with er this reason of refusing constitutional change or not agreeing with er some points in MMD's programme or they just wanted to see another leader leadership . as the last topic last er chapter is er the role and influence of this opposition although the third republic in zambia is generally considered as multiparty system most opposition parties are too weak on their own to offer a strong challenge to the ruling party and prevent them to win the majority of parliamentary seats the only expectio- exceptions are seven opposition parties which are able to get to the parliament but still any effort er to form alliances among them is not very successful , opposition parties generally have very narrow basis of support they are closely connected to specific parts of the country and tend to be ethnically and regionally based er during er during er the 1991 elections the former ruling party was basically reduced to a regional party with its main anchor in the eastern province where it won all the 19 er parliamentary seats it won only six additional seats from other provinces so there were 25 compared to the MMD's er 125 in 1996 out of more than 35 registered er political parties only 12 field candidates for the parliamentary election and only four contested er the presidential polls nine of them boycotted also included er this UNIP the ruling party won 131 out of these er 150 parliamentary seats plus the presidency then ten independent candidates also won the remaining sea- er ten seats and ten seats were er shared among opposition parties during the 2001 elections the rather predominant er party system became more a multipartism of seven parties moreover the ruling party and the president had no parliamentary majority the last elections were held in 2006 in parliament the MMD won 72 seats er the patriotic front er returned with 46 and united democratic alliance collected er 27 , er so we can see that the fragmentation fragmentation of the party system in 1990s had no impact on the structure of the political system but the fragmentation during chiluba's presidency produced er some more important diffe- differences , to compare opposition parties er with the leading one <WHISPERING> i'll go back </WHISPERING> so er to compare er the leading one i found that er there are not many differences between them er for example four of these new parties were rather new issue one-issue parties the only diff- difference er from the MMD er was the issue in which they did not agree with er their programme and also their lead- leadership because of practically almost no differences it was quite easy for the president to entice leading politicians er from these parties into h- into his government maybe more differences could be found between MMD and UPND the second largest there the opposing UPNE UPND er has a stronger focus on agriculture and education and it is the only one keeping its er socialist programme , opposition parties have also been subjected er to state intimidation in zambia there was two times er a state of emergency declared by the leading MMD and the leaders of opposition parties have been among those people who were detained by authorities the first emergency was declared in march 1993 ostensibly to deal with er the threat to national security posed by the so-called zero option plan conceived by UNIP to overthrow the government unlawfully and the second emergency was declared in october 97 following an attempt coup , mhm-hm conclusion so if the party system er in neces- is necessary for democratic stability er the current system in zambia is not er conducive to er to further democratisation er the lack of internal democracy shows that there are no indications that the parties contribute to the creation of a democratic culture what could be seen is only the simple electoral competition of a few not very democratic organisations so thank you for your attention and have a nice day </S4>
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