Africa-Press – Zambia. In disuading the OASIS Forum from protesting at the State House gates, President Hichilema argued that dialogue in a structured fashion had better prospects for desired results given the intricate nature of the issue at hand
He had also argued that court processes were not ideal as well.
With baited breath, I waited for the answer from OASIS Forum. When it came, it was exactly what the President wanted – they agreed to meet him where he wanted them to meet him.
However the meeting proceeded away from television cameras, the President had succeeded in depriving the OASIS Forum of the optics often exploited by civil society – the media coverage of public protests that are intended to project national leaders as hardwired against the voice of reason!
No President wants bad publicity especially when the drums announcing the approaching elections are growing louder and louder.
In addition, the man just had a flury of high profile international engagements – the Chinese Premiere, a US delegation and Trump, Jr.
He’s not about to throw away what projects him as a leader worth of a seat at the table of international players!
Remember the lines he began to throw around when rumor had it that he was about to return KCM to Vedanta contrary to his pre-election campaign?
“We cannot be mining in court”, he began to say, a refrain quickly picked up by his Ministers and his supporters.
By the time KCM was back in the hands of Vedanta, public opinion had largely aligned with him.
With a skillful combination of both logic and moral arguments, Hichilema has mastered the art of extricating himself out of tricky situations and emerging looking good and innocent.
But at the heart of such negotiations often lies the preservation of one’s will presented as collective good.
The parties to the negotiation come out thinking they have won when in essence they have simply helped one man get what he wanted.
That may be called skilled negotiating but it’s also called manipulation, a dishonest way of obtaining something under false pretenses.
And sometimes, such negotiating skills are seen for what they are by alert parties to a matter.
Take for instance the impasse regarding the burial of the former and late President Edgar Lungu.
Projecting sensitivity and reverence, Hichilema did what is expected of a leader and a statesman – declared a national mourning, extended the mourning period, assigned others to negotiate with the family, etc, etc.
But he broke one of the most important tools of negotiations – remain in control of the process – when his government went to court to stop the Lungu family from burying his predecessor in South Africa.
The same way he resolved the KCM saga by saying “we can’t be mining in court”, he should have said, “we can’t be burying in court”.
Consequently, his predecessor remains unburied and her daughter, Tasila, has ended up losing her parliamentary seat.
Ordinarily, negotiations involve a spirit-of-give-and-take. You win some, you lose some.
But when the intention is to win, come high, come low water, an avoidable impasse results.
But even in this impasse, Hichilema is projected in some quarters as a statesman who only wants to accord his predecessor a befitting send-off.
It’s the widow and the family lawyer who are now projected as the obstacles to the “good intentions” of “a good leader”.
Having said this, make no mistake. I am not suggesting that every negotiation Hichilema goes into is about himself.
You will find many other instances that are in national interest or else he wouldn’t be a national leader.
What do you see in the anatomy of Hichilema’s negotiating toolkit?
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