Mwanawasa wins breathing space

As Zambia's disgruntled opposition leaders on Friday pressed on with a campaign to nullify the results of last week's controversial general elections, other Zambians appear to have opted for a more impassive wait-and-see approach. Analysts said the financial and equity markets had been quiet during the week and were likely to remain restrained until the country's economic and political direction became clearer. "The market is expected to remain calm and thin as players wait to hear the policies of the new government," Citibank Zambia said in a treasury market update. The slowdown in economic activity was apparent in Lusaka earlier this week, when the central business district closed as opposition supporters took to the streets to challenge the narrow electoral victory of President Levy Mwanawasa and his Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) in 27 December general elections. By Friday, the turmoil that followed the polls had died down. Some of the 10 losing opposition parties - which initially rejected the election results as fraudulent - had endorsed Mwanawasa as president, and Lusaka residents returned to their normal lives. "Generally, people think it is too early to make any judgements. They would rather wait and see what the composition of the budget will be, and the breakdown of the budget, which will give an indication of the government's priorities," Fred Mutesa, a lecturer at the University of Zambia's department of development studies, told IRIN. "The composition of the cabinet will also tell us whether Mwanawasa is his own man, or a stooge of [former president] Frederick Chiluba," he added. Mwanawasa is expected to name his cabinet either on Sunday or Monday. There is a general perception that Chiluba, who remains the head of the ruling MMD and who handpicked Mwanawasa as the party's presidential candidate, will control the new president and effectively continue to run the country. Chiluba, however, has said he plans to relinquish the party presidency and retire from active politics to set up an institute for the development of democracy in Africa. Chiluba, a former trade union leader, ruled Zambia from 1991. Meanwhile, Mwanawasa's recent pronouncements suggest that he intends to be his own man. Policy statements that he made before and after his election suggest that he plans a populist reversal of aspects of a far-reaching structural adjustment programme that was the cornerstone of Chiluba's economic policy. Mwanawasa said in a television interview broadcast on Thursday that his government would review the country's investment policies to stop unscrupulous foreign investors from plundering the economy. "We want investors who will start building permanent structures like factories. The Investment Centre will have to play a pivotal role in this. I have always said that Zambia is not for sale," he said. Earlier, during his electoral campaign, Mwanawasa pledged to reintroduce exchange controls to protect the Kwacha. He also said he would review the privatisation programme, which saw the sale of over 200 state-run enterprises and which - together with a public service reform programme - cost the country some 300,000 jobs in the 1990s. The country's leading economic lobby groups, including the Zambia National Farmers Union and the Zambia Association of Manufacturers - whose members have borne the brunt of economic liberalisation - would welcome Mwanawasa's populist economic policies. The two organisations blame the economy's decade-long slump on liberalisation, which they say allowed Zambia's wealthier neighbours to dump their products while keeping their own markets closed. However, some economic analysts fear that a reversal of the economic reforms of the 1990s would lead to the flight of capital, and see drastic cuts in foreign direct investment and lifeblood donor aid to the country. "During the 1990s, when our economy was very open, we did not see much foreign direct investment coming in. If we reverse the liberalisation programme now, I doubt that we will see any investment coming in at all. Moreover, such reversals would affect donor support to the country," Mutesa said. Some analysts fear that may already be happening. They say the country's relations with Western donors may have cooled following attacks by the new president on the European Union, which he accused of "creating anarchy" in the country. Mwanawasa charged in his inauguration speech that the EU had raised questions over the conduct of the elections only because their favoured presidential candidate, Anderson Mazoka of the opposition United Party for National Development (UPND) lost. Civil Society Initiative, a Lusaka-based civic society organisation, warned that Mwanawasa's confrontational stance could see western donors cutting aid to the country. "The Civil Society Initiative would like to advise some people not to pass unfounded comments on the European Union in order to win sympathy from the general public, but instead to make informed and factual statements. The country still needs donor support even after the elections," the organisation's executive director, Beck Banda said. There are also grave concerns about the leadership style that Mwanawasa, who readily admits to be short-tempered, will adopt. The 53-year-old lawyer resigned as Chiluba's first vice president in 1994 following a protracted row, played out in the media, with the then minister without portfolio, Michael Sata. He suffered virulent personal attacks in the run-up to the elections, when his opponents nicknamed him "the cabbage", on account of his incoherent speech, occasional memory lapses, and the widely held perception that he suffered brain damage in a road accident in 1991. However, Mwanawasa has made it clear since his inauguration that he will not condone attacks on his person any longer. Noting that unlawful attempts to unseat him amounted to treason, which calls for capital punishment, the president said he would deal firmly with opposition leaders who led demonstrations to challenge his authority and to those who insulted him. His words have lead to a flurry of protests from civic leaders, who now fear that the Mwanawasa years may see a return to the tough rule of former one-party state president Kenneth Kaunda. "His statements scared me. One would have expected that, in the aftermath of such a bitterly contested election, his tone would have been more reconciliatory. His stance will only polarise the country further," Mutesa said. The church-backed Foundation for Democratic Process (FODEP) concurred. "Robust debate, even with caustic and virulent language shall not be stifled in a democracy. We, therefore, feel that the law pertaining to criminal defamation of the president should be scrapped," FODEP president Alfred Chanda said. "Those who feel that they have been defamed, including the president, can use civil defamation law," he added.