THE COBRA AND THE CABBAGE

Stop smirking: there is nothing funny about the loony elections now taking place in Zambia.

Hugh Russell reports from the hustings

Lusaka THIS is the story of a political meeting here in Zambia, Central Africa. It was a rally, almost a hustings in the old-fashioned British electoral sense. Stars of the rally, which was organised by the ruling party in Zambia, the MMD, were the President of Zambia. Dr Frederick J. Chiluba, and a Mr Levy Mwanawasa, the MMD's nomination for president in the forthcoming elections, which will be held next month, or the month after, or next year, or whenever the MMD thinks it might stand a chance of winning.

The world knows who Dr Chiluba is. He is the diminutive, church-going ex-trade unionist who unseated Kenneth Kaunda some ten years ago, and transformed life in Zambia from a kind of state-controlled, dreary poverty into a sparkling, free-market, dreary poverty.

Mr Levy Mwanawasa, on the other hand, is unknown outside the country. But a few years ago he was both a prominent member of the Chiluba Cabinet and a respected lawyer. Life for him, then, must have seemed rich and full of promise.

But in due course things started to go wrong for Levy. First, he reportedly fell out with President Chiluba, who, it was said, had come to regard Mwanawasa not as a colleague but as a dangerous rival. Then he was involved in a horrific road accident. He was being driven to the airport at Lusaka when an oncoming truck swerved across the carriageway, for no discernible reason, and struck Mwanawasa's car with frightening force. Those who saw it said that Mwanawasa should have died. Some said that he was meant to die. But, despite severe head and body injuries, he recovered. Then came the third stroke of bad luck. Chiluba, giving up an unpopular attempt to rewrite the constitution and serve a third term as president, personally selected his successor as MMD presidential candidate. And, to the surprise of the other ministers, who all thought it should have been them, he chose Levy Mwanawasa.

But, frankly, poor old Levy isn't up to it. Allegations of brain damage from the accident have been denied, but it is undoubtedly true that today he appears older, fatter and slower than in the good old days. You might be forgiven for thinking that, as with John Major and Margaret Thatcher, Mwanawasa will make the sort of new leader who could easily be manipulated by the old one, But first he has to be elected. Hence the rally, clearly designed by the MMD and President Chiluba to present Mwanawasa to the public.

It took place in the relatively prosperous copperbelt town of Kitwe, in the north of the country, and was fully covered on television. Fleets of buses ferried the crowd in from the compounds for free. Thousands made the trip, which is not necessarily a sign of Chiluba's popularity. Frankly, if you live in one of those dusty shantytowns, a free trip to anywhere is preferable to staying at home.

Mwanawasa spoke first. He was not a success. Perhaps it was his appearance, which is reminiscent of a subdued Joshua Nkomo. Perhaps it was his personal magnetism, of which he has about the same amount as Roy Hattersley, Or perhaps it was the fact that he spoke entirely in English, which meant that, after every halting and monotonous sentence, he was obliged to stop while an interpreter translated his remarks into the local language of Bemba. The problem here was that the interpreter was clearly a much more charismatic speaker than Levy himself. While Levy sweated and stammered and muttered, the T-shirted interpreter gripped his mike and screamed out the message with great conviction and even greater volume. Certainly, those observers around me agreed that they would vote for the interpreter long before they would vote for poor old Mwanawasa.

Seated just behind the presidential candidate, and smiling with apparent approval of his protégé's performance, was President Dr F.J. Chiluba. And oh boy, what a contrast. This man really is the biz, OK, so you could make at least three Chilubas out of one Mwanawasa, but what he lacks in stature, the good doctor certainly makes up in style. His appearance was nothing less than dynamic. He was by far the bestdressed man on the platform, opting for a neat but stylish safari suit with a casual open collar, in stark contrast to his sweaty colleagues in their suits and ties. A gold Rolex glittered on one wrist. A chunky gold bracelet with links like a chainsaw gleamed on the other. Something — diamonds? — twinkled at his cuffs. And his slimline sunglasses just had to have an Italian designer label on them. When he stood to speak, Chiluba's impact on the proceedings was no less impressive. True, the President is one of those men who are more visible sitting down than standing up, but what he had to say was the sort of thing to make anyone sit up and listen.

Chiluba is recently divorced. A court in his home town of Ndola pushed through the divorce against the wishes of his wife Vera. When the divorce was announced, Chiluba's spokesman told of the 'deep and painful reflection' that had preceded the action. But for the rally Dr Chiluba bravely pushed aside any deep or painful reflections. He told the crowd that today he faced them as a bachelor, And, to celebrate the fact, he sang them a song in Bemba; of which the first line was 'Bachelorhood has confused me.' He then announced that he would fill the roles of president and first lady, because his ex-wife's shoes fitted him (actually, they are probably too big). While the crowd digested this, he called for two minutes' silence in respect of the terrorist attacks in America a silence he broke after about 15 seconds by singing an unaccompanied verse of 'Amazing Grace'.

The rest of the speech included some more surprising statements. Dr Chiluba declared `veni vidi Wei', announced that he was a king, and promised that in three to five years Zambia would be paradise. This last remark was greeted by the crowd with a roar that may have been approval, but might also have been disbelief. The speech made little or no reference to poor old Levy Mwanawasa, except towards the end when the President revealed that he had chosen Levy as his successor because Levy had never insulted him. And this certainly places Mwanawasa in a very small minority of political figures in this country.

To sum up, the afternoon can hardly be seen to have been a success for anyone, and most observers here felt that if it was down to a two-horse race for the presidency, Mwanawasa would come third. But of course it won't come to that, because this is Zambia, where nearly everyone wants to be president. To say that the opposition to Chiluba and the MMD is as scattered as chaff, and as riven as the British Conservative party, would be grossly to understate the case.

We'll ignore the double handful of nonstarters, including Brigadier-General Godfrey Miyanda, leader of the Heritage party, who might be in with a shout if so many members of the Heritage party were not vigorously trying to expel him from it; and even the formidable Francis Nkhoma, leader of Zambia's oldest party. UNIP, who is so unpopular with his members that they throw stones at him whenever they can catch up with him.

Let's turn instead to the real heavyweights — Ex-Vice-President Christon Tembo, Captain Austin Chewe, female contender Edith Nawakwi, Vincent Malambo, General Malimba Masheke, and Dr Boniface Kawimbe (who really is a medical doctor. unlike Dr Chiluba whose doctorate is the sort that Ian Paisley would be proud of). Any of the above might make a credible opponent for Mwanawasa. but there's a snag. They all belong to the same party, the FDD.

The FDD meet this week to decide which of them will be the party's candidate. Anyone who thinks this will be a peaceful democratic process will think again when they start trying to wash the blood off the walls. Hovering in the background is the darkly charismatic figure of Michael Sata. Sata was previously Chiluba's minister without portfolio — in other words, his 'fixer'. Then came a parting of the ways, signalled, Sata revealed recently, by the President confiscating his minister's official limo. It's the Zambian equivalent of moving your desk into the corridor. As minister without either portfolio or vehicle, Sata resigned in quick time.

Sata has a remarkable talent for confusing. On Saturday he declared himself head of a new Patriotic Front, for which he would run for the presidency. But on Monday we woke up to find that he had slapped a High Court injunction on the MMD, restraining them from expelling him, which apparently they did after he had left. One way or another, Sata remains a big player on the Zambian scene, circling the other contenders like some dread predator. If Zambia were not a landlocked country, his nickname would undoubtedly be 'Shark'. As it is, they call him 'the Cobra'.

All this means that there is still no distinctive and distinguished candidate to take on Mwanawasa for the presidency, even though elections could come as soon as next month. So is there any hope that the MMD and the Chiluba dynasty can be defeated? Well, yes there is. In fact, it's hard not to feel that Mwanawasa and his mentor have lost before they've really started. The reason is this: Zambians have a highly developed sense of humour. They love to laugh at their politicians. And Mwanawasa, despite his impeccable credentials and his record of good work, has given them too much to laugh at. His big mistake was to respond to the rumours that his accident had reduced his mental powers. He declared to the Zambian public that he was not, repeat not, a 'cabbage'. The opposition press leapt on this declaration with whoops of joy. Soon one columnist was adapting the historic Zambian national slogan 'One Zambia, One Nation' to read 'One Zambia, One Cabbage'. Another writer accepted Mr Mwanawasa's assurance that he was not a cabbage, but questioned whether or not he might be a cauliflower. And the jokes have spread among the general public. In the markets giggling housewives no longer ask for a cabbage. They ask, of course, for a Mwanawasa.

If the MMD is to win the next election, if President Chiluba is to realise his grand design to have his own man installed as president in State House and continue whatever it was he set out to do ten years ago, then these cabbage jokes have got to stop.