Voting for a sick guy for President
So this Sata[n] guy is now Zambian president. But we can see where this is going. He is the “opposition” guy who during this presidential bid slammed the “opposition” guy of another country, and we obviously wondered what his priorities were, whether he had run out epithets for Rupiah Banda, the then Zimbabwean Zambia president. And we obviously have to ask what this will mean about Tsvangirai trying to rally or engage other SADC leaders in his long stand-off with Mugabe. Can we expect Tsvangirai to have Sata’s ear? Maybe he will have it [the ear] for a bit of wringing like they do those bratty kindergarten kids, for that’s exactly how the new president was behaving in the run-up! But then it must be remembered this Sata guy was being advised not to stand for election because of his apparently failing health.
It’s already being asked about the political implications of voting for a guy whose “tenure” on earth is already under close scrutiny not by his opponents but his physicians! But then the history of post-independence African politics has plenty of these ailing old men who imagine themselves to be agile Herculeses imagining they can withstand the rigours of the rough political terrain known in these rather cruel parts. Recall that old fool Kamuzu Banda falling and failing to use his reflexes that had been slowed by old age and hitting his mouth on the hard earth? He still insisted he was raring to go, “the people still want me,” he said, like someone we know, despite plenty evidence to the contrary even among his very own comrades!
I ain’t no clairvoyant nor a tsikamutanda, but Zambians – and indeed the world – are obviously watching this Sata guy and will soon be asking themselves why the heck they voted for a sick guy for president.