Abstract
This paper interrogates the intermingling of populist politics and the media in Zambia. It analyses populist tendencies the country’s 2011 and 2016 presidential elections. The examination of the 2011 elections considers this coming together of populist Patriotic Front (PF) party figures and the media through the lens of The Post Newspaper, representing ‘old’ media. The 2016 elections examination focuses on alternative media, particularly looking at how the PF utilised popular music and social media, to communicate its populist ideas. The analysis shows that the PF, with and without their populist founder Michael Sata, managed to maintain close ties with the media for their political success. Later, they were willing to utilise and harness the potential of alternative media to meet their objectives in 2016. The paper however warns that the merging of media with populism is a danger that heavily compromises the ability of the media to serve the public as they should.
Highlights
The 2011 presidential elections in Zambia ushered into office the Patriot Front (PF), led by its charismatic founder, Michael Chilufya Sata
Scholarship has established a populist turn in Zambian politics following the ascendance of Sata and the Patriotic Front (PF) to prominence after the 2006 elections when it emerged as the largest opposition party (Larmer and Fraser, 2007; Cheeseman, Ford and Simutanyi, 2015; Fraser, 2017)
By the run up to and after the subsequent elections in 2011, when the PF emerged victorious, populist politics had found a footing in Zambia and were entrenched in the media as well
Summary
The 2011 presidential elections in Zambia ushered into office the Patriot Front (PF), led by its charismatic founder, Michael Chilufya Sata. This paper discusses the intermingling of populist politics and the media in Zambia during and after the Michael Sata era. The paper does this in two layers It uses the 2011 elections to show the integration of populist politics with traditional media when the party was under Michael Chilufya Sata. Mazzoleni (2003) provides examples of France’s Jean-Marie Le Pen’s singing in the parliament, and Italy’s Umberto Bossi’s use of both swearing (to express anger with status quo) and poetry in his speeches as all populist tactics of using emotional discourse to gain the support of the ordinary people Another important attribute of populism is the presence of charismatic leader who is usually the pillar of the party. This analysis is meant to paint a more complete picture of what Engesser et al (2017, p. 1110) identifies as the “hybrid media system” within which contemporary media operate and social media plays an important part
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