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TRIBUTE TO ANDERSON MAZOKA By Chanda Chisala, 24th May, 2006. 09:00 am.  The first time I talked to Mr. Mazoka was in 2000, before the presidential elections. What struck me about him was his extremely high sense of self-confidence. I was driving this day when I got a call from him and immediately decided to park by the side of the road as I heard the voice on the phone say, "Hello; This is Mazo-oka" (he pronounced his name a little differently from the English-ized way most Zambians pronounce it). And then he started asking me to meet him and "Ambassador Mutesa" so that we – that is, Mr.Mazoka, Mr. Mutesa, and myself - could strategise over the design and launch of a new web site for his presidential campaign. He further explained to me that they did not want to launch it too soon because the MMD did not really have a manifesto yet and "they might want to simply copy ours if we put it up too soon!"
What struck me was how he seemed to just assume that I was on his side and didn't even bother to ask! But what was even funnier was that at the time I got his call I was with my mother in the car, someone who was quite high in the MMD ranks! I soon concluded that Mr. Mazoka had this sort of charm that he put out on people, which explains why he has had some very faithful loyalists for the longest time, even without making it into government. Because when he finished talking to me, I felt that he thought me important enough to be trusted with such secret strategies (even though it was nothing, really!) and of course, I kept the conversation from the MMD 'enemy' I was with in the car! A close friend of mine Victor, confirmed my assessment of Mr. Mazoka's charm when he met him quite recently over some non-political professional matter. Like me, Victor is not a member of any political party, but - "I could not believe he told me so many things – how did he know I was not in the intelligence or something?" an evidently shocked Victor told me after their meeting at Mr. Mazoka's house. I was not surprised. There are too many lessons we can learn from the life of such a great man. Perhaps we all need a little extra charm to make it in life, especially if we choose careers that require dealing with a lot of people. In fact, there is no one who can succeed without knowing how to deal with people. Wherever he got it from., Mr. Mazoka's leadership secret seems to have been his ability to make other people feel important. One way you make other people feel important is by trusting them with information; information that is supposed to be known only by very important people in the system! Mr. Mazoka might have learned this from his job as Anglo American Corporation (Southern Africa) president. Or it could have been even earlier as Managing Director of Zambia Railways. Wherever he learnt it from, he perfected it and made it a natural, probably unconscious, part of him. Mr. Mazoka's illustrious career is impossible to cover in one article. One might need to write a whole book, if not two volumes. You do not find such a life even in the most developed world: a totally self made man both in his corporate career and his political life. He always seemed to fight against all odds to emerge as a surprising achiever in all fields. His political party, the United Party for National Development (UPND), was started when he failed to get a small position in the ruling Movement for Multi-Party Democracy (MMD) – branch chairman of a simple constituency – due to resistance from people higher than him who felt threatened by his involvement in the party. Using his brilliant leadership and management skills, he managed to build another party that quickly became the strongest threat to the ruling party, managing to grab almost half the seats in parliament from them only in his first election, himself losing very narrowly (by about 2 per cent) to the candidate of the incumbent party under extremely controversial circumstances. It took over a year for the Supreme Court to controversially decide that Mr. Mazoka had indeed lost that election, although a large portion of the Zambian population remain unconvinced to this day. Mr. Mazoka's party looked bound to fail when he just formed it, as it carried the stigma of being a tribal party. The UPND's stronghold was clearly in the Southern Province, Mr. Mazoka's tribal home. But Mr. Mazoka managed to penetrate even areas where no one expected him to win a single vote due to this tribalist stigma. He managed to "charm" tribes that were told he was a passionate tribalist against them! In the Northern Province, for example, where this message of his tribalism was fervently preached by almost all other parties to tarnish his name, Mr. Mazoka managed to beat many candidates who come from there, including such 'deep' Northerners as Michael Sata, Nevers Mumba and B.Y. Mwila in almost all the constituencies. Some people think this shows that Northerners are not tribalists; I think it shows that Anderson Mazoka was a genius! What a fighter. It was not just the stigma of tribalism that he had to fight against, but even the stigma of his alleged "deep" involvement in the "satanic rituals" of the Free Masons, something which no one even remembers this day because he fought it and totally overcame it. His final and hardest battle was with his own failing health. He fought this battle the hardest, coming out from what everyone thought was his deathbed so many times, and continuing with his political ambitions with undaunted passion. He decided to convince the public that he was still fit to lead and he managed to win even this battle by convincing the people in his own party to stop trying to remove him from the presidency. But after winning this last battle with public perception, his body finally betrayed him. His spirit was willing, but his flesh was weak, as the Bible says. Mazoka's death marks an indelible dent in Zambia's history. The so-called "Third Republic" in Zambia's political history will henceforth be divided between the Pre-Mazoka and Post-Mazoka eras, for everything changed when he started his political party, and everything will change upon his death. All the political parties, including the ruling party, will have to immediately convene in their circles to analyse what this means for them, and those who are most irrational will mis-interpret this momentous event to their own destruction. But for those of us less politically involved, this will just be a time of reflection: how could a single man achieve so much, alone, through his simple initiative, in such a short time. How could a simple Zambian with an extremely humble background, develop such a persuasive, magnetic personality that even the most skeptical white corporate directors would entrust him with top management over their most treasured assets. And how could such a man, upon retiring from his corporate career, enter into a new field where he had no experience, no background, and yet manage to shake up the entire structure and face of its very parliament. What a man! May his soul rest in peace. (Mr. Anderson Mazoka died on 24th May, 2006 around 01:00 hours. The Author is founder and president of Zambia Online). See also Condolences Page | To comment on this article, go to ARTICLES COMMENTS FORUM | Back to Zambia Online |