Decision making among peace-loving Zambians

I have lived through a two-day decision making nightmare at the Zambian NGO Congress. This congress had been organized by the Ministry of Community Development, Mother and Child Health (aka - given the love for acronyms in Zambia - the MCDMCH) to push forward the implementation of the very restrictive NGO Act. This NGO Act had been adopted in August 2009 by the former MMD government (in power until the elections in 2011), but never been implemented.

To understand the backdrop of the NGO Congress, two rather complex constellations should be kept in mind:
1. For the implementation of the act, two NGO decision making bodies have to be put in place, i.e. (ideally) voted for by NGOs and thus made operational: The NGO board and the NGO council. According to the act, the NGO board would be responsible for the registration and deregistration of NGOs on very vague grounds such as the "public good" and "public security". The crux is that the NGO board is designed to be dominated by state officials: Of the 15 members of the board, six are envisaged to be direct representatives of line ministries, two would be appointed by the head of the MCDMCH and 7 would be representatives nominated by the NGO Congress but subject to approval by the Minister for CDMCH. The NGO Council, in turn, is a twelve-member body consisting only of NGO representatives, that has, however, no decision making powers regarding the registration process, but instead a rather vague general oversight function regarding the implementation of the act. Hence, the NGO Act, if implemented, would lead to a substantial increase of control of civil society by the state. Now, the NGO board has a quorum of eight members, that is, it is able to operate without NGO representatives. So the choice of the NGO Congress was effectively between suicide and killing oneself: Either legitimating the process of state control over civil society by voting for the representatives of the NGO board but maintaining - in the opinion of congress delegates - a good relationship to the government by virtue of a proven will to collaborate and securing access to the decision making process regarding the registration of NGOs *or* not voting for NGO board members and thus refusing to legitimize the NGO Act, but angering government and risking to be further marginalized in the governance of their own sector because the NGO Act could be implemented anyway, albeit without their participation.
2. The new PF government had repeatedly stated, while in opposition, that it would repeal or at least decisively amend the NGO Act when voted into power. After this became reality in the 2011 elections, it has spread the information that the NGO Act would have to be implemented first for at least 30 days before it could be repealed or amended, as it is already law since 2009. This is certainly not true, but an argument that still had some currency among NGO delegates when the congress started. From the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Justice, the congress delegates were further informed that the government has not yet schedulded the NGO Act for debate in parliament for 2013. Hence, an amendement or repeal of the law would be possible not earlier than 2014. This means that first of all, the reregistration of existing NGOs in Zambia would be governed by an unchanged, restrictive NGO Act that allows the government to deny reregistration to NGOs at will and on diverse grounds. The operation of unregistered organizations is, at the same time, punished by the Act with at least three months jailtime. Hence, by the time the NGO Act could be amended, most NGOs that have proven to be a pain in the ass for the government and hence not been reregistered, would be out of operation for at least a year and thus most certainly be very dead. Secondly, once the Act is implemented, many vocal NGOs shut down, the system running smoothly and reregistered NGOs are under the constant threat of deregistration, the opposition to the law would be inexistant and amendments all of a sudden a very unimportant issue on the government's agenda. Sounds like an obvious trap? Yes, but not necessarily to everyone it seems.

So much for the backdrop. But I have lied to you: With this background in mind you will most likely still not be able to understand what happened at the NGO Congress. At least neither did I or any other foreign observer - nor any of the Zambian NGO delegates that I have asked.

First, there was a very vocal opposition to the law - so far, so understandable. Delegates held emotional speeches accusing the government of not being honest with them, they condemned the law to be criminal and to violate their right of speech and association. There was a lot of cheering and applause. The main question was hence not whether NGO delegates liked the law. Instead it centered on how to deal with the Act. Some of the fervent speeches against the law ended with the surprising conclusion that anyway, the NGO board should be voted for and the Act be implemented, because, after all, it was already law and the PF government promised to amend it further down the road. Oha, I thought.
After hours of debate, however, the conclusion seemed to have been reached that the NGO Congress should not vote for neither the board nor the council. Eventually, the moderator asked the crowd: "Do you want to work inside the legal framework by voting for the NGO board and work with the government towards the amendment of the law at a later point in time?" Never mind that this was not a neutral formulation of the question, only six to ten delegates stood up. There was laughter among the delegates and quite some relief among the observers. The situation seemed clear: This is the end of the NGO Congress, at least in the way the government planned it. However, this is not what happened. The moderator proposed a short break and some traditional dancers came on stage with many and very loud drummers. After 15 minutes or so, the moderator came back, said that there had been a consultation among "all the stakeholders" and this was the conclusion: Considering the fact that the Act was law since August 2009 and thus should be followed and that in the invitation to the congress, delegates had been asked to come to vote (he stressed that fact several times as if it would explain anything), the decision was made to continue with the voting procedure. Wow, I thought. Now people will jump up from their seats in protest. But nothing happened. Nothing. Every single delegate kept quiet. Two employees of the Electoral Commission of Zambia came on stage and started to explain the rules that were to guide the following election procedure. They asked for suggestions regarding how many supporters a nominee to the board should have. And the crowd started responding, shouting "three" or "five" or "ten". Eventually, the first day of the conference ended with the nomination process.

There would be much more to be told about this first day of the congress and the following second day. But this short episode shall suffice to give an idea of the extent of surprise that interactions in Zambia evoke in me. What to do with it? It is not the first time I have encountered situations in Zambia that (at first sight) seemed to be marked by a tendency to circumvent rather than confront, a strong willingness to agree and a wait-and-see mentality. I am continously trying to sort out what I encounter and here is what I have come up with so far:

In Zambia, there is a strong conflict aversion among peers and especially with authorities - with the following outcomes:
1. Consensus is extremely important, i.e. debate goes on and larger groups are perceived by members to be split as long as there are vocal minorities, no matter how small.
2. Redress will be sought by solving conflicts "legally"/according to pre-established rules among those that have the educational background to understand legal institutions, as legal institutions provide individuals with rules according to which they "have to" confront each other (i.e. rules legitimize confrontation).
3. "Dialogue", no matter how monologous in actual practice, will always be favoured over confrontation by non-verbal means such as symbolic actions or violence etc.
4. - and following directly from 1. - decision making processes in groups are prone to be captured by vocal individuals that may keep a debate going by simple objection, and because there is a strong will to reach consensus, those individuals will be able to shift the "middle ground" in a bargaining situation decisively towards their position.
5. Verbalized individual reasoning is shifting quickly to accomodate group outcomes to release the tension between the perceived will of the group and individual (momentary) point of view.

And here some more far fetched conclusions:
All this is not to say that the same individuals are not able to be confrontative etc. - I assume that once group cohesion is established and a leader agreed upon (mainly by self-appointment), this leader is able to provide followers with a legitimate space for (even violent) confrontative action by solving moral or even simple decision dilemmas for the group. This leader is further able "to work with" the unreleased tension that larger groups quickly develop by not being able to act due to their strong consensus orientation.
At the same time, those (few) individuals that are ready to insist on their personal opinion quickly ascend into leadership positions and as there is a relative dominance of politics over other sectors of society in Zambia this is where these people flock. Hence politics shows a much stronger tendency to be confrontative (and sometimes even violent) - and followers expect strong and decided leadership positions and strong confrontative action by politicians.

Mufumbwe by-elections

Zambia is certainly not the epicenter of world politics in the first place. Parliamentary by-elections in Mufumbwe district, however, are even for Zambian standards a rather insignificant event: 27.027 registered voters choosing a representative in parliament for their constituency of roughly 55.000 people. After all, there are 158 MPs in Zambia’s National Assembly and more than 13 million Zambians. 

That's the car our team has spent 1500 km in - 750 km to and 750 km back from Mufumbwe. 

To give you a little more detail on the insignificance of it all: Northwestern Province, in which Mufumbwe district is located, is the most sparsely populated province in the country. It has only 706.000 inhabitants, but has with 125,826 km² a third of Germany’s landmass. Mufumbwe, in turn, is a rather large district of the province with a rather small part of the province’s population – and more than 750 km away from the capital. (The blue line in the small map below shows the way from Lusaka to Mufumbwe town that we used.)


View Larger Map

Well, you get the picture: It doesn’t get much more remote than that and it doesn’t get much more “I couldn’t care less” for Zambia’s bobo politicians...

Remotedness - a voter (?) heading towards a polling station.

…if it wouldn’t be for Zambia’s watershed 2011 general elections, that is. After 20 years of MMD rule, these elections brought the Patriotic Front to power. Put differently, they let to the very first change in the country’s leadership between democratically elected governments in Zambia’s history. Taking place roughly one year after these elections, the Mufumbwe by-elections may have been seen as a test for the new ruling party whether it is still able to stir up some enthusiasm in the country – enough to win the parliamentary seat that was up for grabs in the Mufumbwe by-elections, at least. In any case, the PF rented a chopper and flew in all their big shots, inter alia vice-president Guy Scott, to promise everything from new health posts to “more money in your pocket” and – tataa - development. The former ruling party MMD, in turn, is currently fighting to remain a significant player in Zambia’s politics and every by-election for parliament is either another potentially decisive punch in the face or a little help to stay upright. After all, there is the specter of the first post-independence ruling party, UNIP, which rapidly became as insignificant as it gets before dying off after the first multi-party elections in Zambia. Moreover, the MMD recently partnered up with the UPND – the other important opposition party under the MMD government that is still in opposition. The MMD supported their candidate in the June by-elections in their strong-hold Livingstone, expecting UPND to throw their weight behind MMD’s candidate in the Mufumbwe by-elections. So it was a double test for MMD – would their partnership hold in the future and would they be able to garner a much needed moment of glory. Well, I should probably write something about party politics in Zambia before going into more detail. The take-away message: Even though Mufumbwe district is far out and not important in terms of anything you could read out of the statistics, the by-elections here were important this time around.

Anyway, when FODEP asked me whether I would like to come along and monitor these elections, I said immediately yes. Not that I knew very much about the significance of these elections myself. It was rather: “Me, an international election monitor, out there in the bush – yes!” Oh, and these were glorious days – a political safari you could say. (I was the only international monitor, by the way, and the only white person I have seem in a 100 km radius.)

The FODEP monitoring team (plus me)

Writing our pre-election statement.

Forget about the other story on the unregistered cars for a moment. I was impressed by how professionally organized these elections were from the Zambian Election Commission’s side. All polling materials were already distributed one day before the elections, they got a chopper to fly them out to remote (that is, even more remote) polling stations and fly the ballot boxes back in, and the presiding officers (every polling station has one) I met were very knowledgeable, very accurate and very diplomatic. Moreover, in all polling stations at least two party officials were present, making a mark in their copies of the voter register for each voter that came along. I am convinced that you cannot organize the process much more transparent than that.

6 am - the polling station opened on time.

Party representatives checking the voter register.

Counting votes. Outside the schools the voters were already waiting and chanting.

Signing the results sheet that is to be posted outside the polling stations...

...after it has been read out aloud to the waiting constituency.

It is a different matter when it comes to the pre-election period. Bad reporting by the media (“Why checking allegations? Hell, it is a story the moment I can cite a politician!”) and militarily organized party campaigns create an atmosphere that is a bit too mafia-like for me to be completely sure which things could possibly really happen and have happened and which are just propaganda and counter-propaganda. Read our preliminary post-election statement for more details: FODEP post-election interim statement.

Unregistered cars

It is 19 hours (as they say here), but pitch dark in Mufumbwe. Our election monitoring team has arrived earlier the day and has already held several meetings with important stakeholders in the Mufumbwe by-elections. Now we are on our way to the campaign headquarters of one of the strongest contenders for the parliamentary seat that is up for grabs.

We’re stopped by a big-bellied, strong-muscled dude at a large gate to the HQ. We can see dozens of young chaps – party cadres or “foot soldiers” (as they are called by their own party) – hanging around in the compound’s courtyard behind the dude’s impressive silhouette. After some discussion and cross-checking, we are let inside. The candidate greats us from behind a huge desk. Behind him, on the wall, flip charts from a previous meeting with his cadres. One written rule for the campaign team: “Violence shall be used only in self-defense. Be vigilant and ready.” 

While we are listening to his complaints regarding the laziness of the police and the violence of the other teams, the room fills with other party officials. The candidate is telling us how the others are using unregistered cars to carry out misdeeds such as the tearing down of campaign posters and the beating up of his own men (for they are all men) to confuse the public and avoid persecution by the police. His men are adding detail to his allegations: This and that car, this and that violation of the electoral code. I ask him: “So what about the car without number plates in your courtyard here?” A second of silence. Then he says: “What car?” To which his campaign manager responds: “I think he talks about the black Pajero.” I can see that the candidate for a moment is undecided about whom to punch in the face first – his own campaign manager or me. He says: “So what does that have to do with what I was saying?” Nothing, I guess. When we came out, the Pajero was gone.