When power forgets whom it serves

Paul T. Shipale (with inputs by Folito Nghitongovali Diawara Gaspar)

How far will the hunger for power go before the nation begins to pay the price?

That is the question that every political generation eventually has to confront on how far are those who hold power prepared to go to keep it?

How much compromise is too much? How much institutional damage is acceptable? How much public trust can be consumed in the pursuit of political survival?

And at what point does the pursuit of power cease to be about serving the nation and become an exercise in protecting positions, privileges and personal interests?

These are uncomfortable but necessary questions.

Because the greatest danger to a republic is not necessarily the existence of ambitious politicians. Political ambition is not, by itself, a vice.

The danger begins when ambition becomes more important than institutions; when loyalty to individuals replaces loyalty to principles; and when political power begins to regard the State not as a public trust, but as an instrument of parochial private or partisan interest.

That is where the line must be drawn.

The State is not a private estate

The State does not belong to any government or individuals.

No political party, regardless of their history or contribution to national liberation, belongs to individual personalities.

These distinctions may sound obvious. Yet history teaches us that democracies become vulnerable precisely when such distinctions are gradually eroded.

The danger does not always arrive dramatically, sometimes it arrives quietly.

A critical voice is dismissed while an uncomfortable question is treated as disloyalty.

Competence gives way to proximity and accountability becomes selective.

Institutions become increasingly dependent on political personalities.

Public resources become instruments of influence and eventually, what should have been regarded as abnormal begins to look normal.

That is how institutional decline begins not always even with a ‘coup de Palais’ but sometimes with the slow normalisation of practices that should never have become acceptable.

Who controls the powerful?

The question, therefore, cannot simply be who is in power?

The deeper question is who holds power accountable?

And beyond that who holds accountable those whose responsibility is to hold power accountable? Funny enough, those who spent years planning to take over power, are the same people blocking overs to take over power and usually do not want to be held accountable.

A functioning democracy cannot depend entirely on the personal virtue of whoever occupies office.

Institutions exist precisely because human beings are fallible and because absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Parliaments exist to exercise oversight functions and scrutinise.

Courts exist to uphold the law.

Auditors exist to examine the use of public resources.

The media exists, among other things, to ask uncomfortable questions.

Civil society exists to provide another layer of public scrutiny.

And citizens have the right to demand answers from those entrusted with public authority.

Strong institutions do not weaken the government. They protect the government from becoming arbitrary.

They also protect citizens from becoming powerless.

The African lesson

Africa’s political history offers enough evidence to remind us that liberation from colonial rule did not automatically guarantee liberation from the abuse of power.

The struggle for political independence was fundamentally about reclaiming sovereignty.

But sovereignty is not fulfilled merely because a national flag flies over a government building.

True sovereignty also requires institutions capable of serving citizens rather than personalities.

It requires governments that understand that public resources belong to the public.

It requires personalities and political parties that recognise that their historical contribution does not place them permanently above scrutiny.

And it requires citizens who understand that patriotism does not mean remaining silent in the face of wrongdoing.

A country does not become stronger because its citizens stop asking questions. It becomes stronger when institutions are strong enough to withstand those questions.

That lesson remains relevant across the continent, including in countries whose democratic credentials and liberation histories are rightly sources of national pride.

History should be respected but history should never become a licence for impunity.

Do not confuse loyalty with silence

There is a particularly dangerous political culture in which loyalty is measured by silence.

The loyal official is expected not to question.

The loyal party member is expected not to disagree.

The loyal citizen is expected not to challenge but what kind of loyalty is that?

If a government is heading towards a bad decision, is the loyal person the one who remains silent or the one courageous enough to say, this is wrong?

If a public institution is failing, is loyalty demonstrated by protecting its reputation or by demanding that it improves?

If public money is being mismanaged, is patriotism demonstrated by silence or by asking where the money went?

These are not abstract philosophical questions.

They determine whether institutions serve society or merely protect themselves.

Silence may preserve a position. It does not necessarily preserve a nation.

Who pays the price?

And this is where political debates often become disconnected from ordinary life.

Power struggles take place in boardrooms, party structures, parliaments and government offices, corridors and halls.

But their consequences are experienced elsewhere.

By the young person who cannot find work.

By the entrepreneur who cannot access opportunity without the right connections.

By the family waiting for better healthcare services.

By the community without adequate infrastructure.

By the student whose potential is constrained by a system that rewards proximity over merit.

By the taxpayer who continues to finance institutions without seeing the corresponding public value.

This is why governance is not an abstract subject.

Bad governance eventually becomes a household problem.

The consequences appear in the cost of living, employment opportunities, public services, investment confidence and the general belief that tomorrow can be better than today.

When citizens begin to believe that the rules are different for the powerful and the powerless, something more important than political popularity begins to disappear.

And once public trust collapses, rebuilding it can take generations.

Power is temporary. Institutions must endure

Every political leader should eventually confront one unavoidable reality that power is temporary, governments change, parties alliances change, generations change.

Even political movements that once appeared invincible eventually face the passage of time.

The State, however, must remain. It must endure. It is about processes, systems and institutions.

That is why the true test of leadership should not be how effectively someone maintains power.

It should be what happens to the country after they leave it.

Did they strengthen institutions?

Did they protect the Constitution?

Did they create opportunities for all or just for a circle of friends and family members?

Did they leave behind a professional public service?

Did they make it easier for the next generation to govern responsibly or did they build a system that could function only while they remained at the centre of it?

There is a profound difference between institutionalizing power and personalizing power.

The first builds a republic.

The second builds dependence.

No party is greater than the nation

Political parties are essential instruments of democracy but they are not the nation.

No party, regardless of its history, should become indistinguishable from the State.

No leader, regardless of their contribution, should become indistinguishable from the national interest.

And no electoral victory should be interpreted as a permanent mandate to ignore scrutiny.

Democracy is not simply the right of the majority to govern.

It is also the obligation of the majority to respect institutions, laws and the rights of those who disagree.

A democracy is tested not only by how it treats its winners, but by how it protects its dissenters.

That is where political maturity begins.

The question of legacy

Eventually, every leader leaves office.

When that moment comes, speeches will matter less.

Titles will matter less.

Political slogans will matter less.

What will remain is the institutional architecture left behind.

The schools, hospitals, roads, public service, economy, judiciary, credibility of Parliament, independence of institutions, trust of citizens and the memory of how power was exercised.

That is why perhaps the most important question any political leader can ask is not “How long can I remain in power?” but “What kind of a country will remain when I am gone?”

That question changes everything as it moves politics from survival to stewardship.

From personal ambition to public responsibility.

From the next election to the next generation.

The final account

Power can control the present.

It can influence institutions.

It can shape narratives.

It can reward loyalty.

It can even create the illusion of permanence.

But power cannot permanently control history.

One day, citizens will ask what did you do with what was entrusted to you?

What did you do with public money?

What did you do with public institutions?

What did you do with the trust of the people?

What did you do when you had the opportunity to strengthen the party and nation and what did you sacrifice in order to remain in control?

Those questions cannot be answered indefinitely through political slogans, rituals and symbolism.

They require a record.

They require accountability.

They require history.

Because governments come and go.

Political alliances come and go.

Fortunes and leaders come and go but the consequences of political decisions remain.

So, to those who hold power and to those who aspire to hold it the question is not whether you can acquire power.

The question is whether you can exercise it without becoming consumed by it.

Not whether you can defeat your political opponents but whether you can strengthen the institutions that will protect even those who oppose you.

Not whether you can remain at the top echelons of a political party and the highest helms of government but whether the country can stand stronger even after you leave.

How far, then, will the hunger for power take a person?

Far enough to weaken the institutions that protect the nation?

Far enough to sacrifice public trust for private ambition?

Far enough to forget that every office is temporary and every generation eventually gives an account of what it inherited or will such a person recognise the truth that history has repeatedly demonstrated that power is borrowed and the nation is not.

And when the borrowed power is finally returned, what remains will be a legacy and sometimes too ghastly to contemplate. Look at what is happening in Zambia and elsewhere. Let power never forget whom it serves.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of our employers or this newspaper. They represent our personal views as citizens and Pan-Africanists.