I just want to give free friendly advice to our two former presidents Kenneth Kaunda and Frederick Chiluba who together ruled Zambia for a combined total of 37 years. We are grateful for the achievements they accomplished but don’t want to repeat their costly mistakes.

It is always sad when our two former presidents, who now have president Rupiah Banda as the common denominator after their years of adversity, are always caught up in the matrix of partisan political controversies at home. Rather, these two are supposed to be international statesmen in the standing of Nelson Mandela, Ketumile Masire, Joachim Chissano, Festus Mogae, Bill Clinton, etc and helping out in international disasters such as in Haiti, Iraq, Afghanistan, the DR Congo, Yemen, Somalia, etc.

Not long ago, Kaunda was caught up in the George Mpombo controversy and received a lot of criticism for being perceived as defending President Rupiah Banda and MMD. Now if it’s true what was reported in The Post that Chiluba is on the Copperbelt to de-campaign PF leader Michael Sata and the PF-UPND pact, and further plans to go to Luapula and Northern provinces for this purpose, this is very sad indeed.

This is because in any partisan political contest, Chiluba will always come off worse, just as Kaunda did a few weeks ago because the public expects the office of an ex-president to be above partisan politics because they can divide and polarise the nation. Yes, Kaunda and Chiluba have a democratic right to endorse their preferred candidate Rupiah Banda but they should not reduce themselves to the level of mere MMD party cadres.

Perhaps Chiluba needs to be reminded that the influence and popularity he once enjoyed on the Copperbelt, Luapula and Northern provinces is long gone and after the legacy of failures of his economic policies which resulted in mass suffering and unemployment, he may only generate hate and disrespect for himself.
My counsel to our two former presidents is to take a non-partisan profile.