Macphersson Mutale
PRESIDENT HH IS A GENIUS LOVE HIM OR HATE HIM
I love studying politics and politicians. They fascinate me, even though I personally have no political ambition or interest. I simply enjoy understanding why politicians do what they do and how their decisions shape nations. I have often argued that politicians should be among the most qualified individuals in a nation because the decisions they make affect millions of people
That said, President HH is one of the politicians I respect the most in our time. He has an aura about him that is very difficult to explain. This is a man who has been in the trenches of Zambian politics for more than two decades. He has come to understand the Zambian political system so deeply that he can now control it without facing the backlash most politicians would face.
One may ask: how has he managed to achieve this?
Well, let me explain, and I want you to follow me closely. Then you will begin to understand just how much of a political genius he is. Hate him or love him, the man understands how to run a political system and how to influence decisions.
When the founding president of the United Party for National Development, Anderson Mazoka, died, there was a huge internal battle over who would take over the party. UPND had several big names that wanted to jump in and assume leadership, but President HH defeated them all convincingly. Some became frustrated and eventually left the party.
President HH endured and slowly began building the party. Many people thought he would eventually give up, but he never did. He kept pushing forward. If there is one thing I have learned about President HH, it is that he is stubbornly ambitious whenever he believes he can achieve something. Once he makes up his mind, it is almost impossible to change it, and many people dislike him for that attribute.
This is a man who, against all odds, was called all sorts of names — from Freemason to Satanist — yet he never cared. He simply kept showing up and continued fighting. When people accused him of unfairly benefiting from the privatization of Zambian companies, he challenged everyone to point out exactly what he had done wrong. To this day, no one has conclusively pointed at anything illegal; otherwise, he would already be in prison.
But that is only the starting point.
President HH was one of the few people who awakened to how systems work very early in life. Education and exposure helped him quickly understand how the economic system functions. His studies in both Zambia and the United Kingdom, as well as his early professional life in both countries, helped him understand who truly controls economic systems.
Unlike most people, he was not consumed by the desire to fit in. Instead, he studied the economic system until he became competent enough to understand how it worked and how he could use it to improve his own position. While many people, including some of his classmates and colleagues, pursued flashy lifestyles associated with wealth, he chose a disciplined and relatively humble path.
He began building his wealth and empire one block at a time. He understood the system. He recognized where the true value of the nation was — in the land. More importantly, he prepared himself so that when opportunity appeared, he seized it. Many people have tried to associate him with wrongdoing during privatization, but they have never been able to prove anything because he simply used his understanding of the system to create value for himself.
You see comrades, it takes a genius to understand that you do not need your name splashed everywhere on what you own for people to respect you. Own things through corporate structures, and whoever comes after you will have to deal with those corporate structures. That is perhaps one of the major differences between him and the likes of Geoffrey Bwalya Mwamba.
Back to politics.
President HH has built a political system that is loyal and dependent on him as the leader. Those who rebel against that system are pushed out and usually find it difficult to challenge it because it is fundamentally a loyalty-based structure.
Right now, because of the discipline within the UPND, most members understand that standing on the party ticket is already half the job done toward getting elected. President HH has formalized party politics to such an extent that lumpens and political cadres have become almost irrelevant. You now have to work through party structures if you want to succeed; otherwise, you are on your own.
President HH has also depoliticized the nation in ways many people have not yet fully understood. This is huge. Opposition political leaders claim that he has made the political environment difficult through laws such as the cyber security legislation and the revised Public Order framework. The reality, however, is that many opposition leaders — not all, but many — are petty opportunists carrying massive skeletons in their closets.
If there is one thing HH has perfected, it is his understanding of the political system. On this one, I can confidently say the current crop of politicians cannot outmaneuver him. They are too scared, too indecisive, and too disorganized to mount any meaningful challenge against Bally. He outplayed them from the very beginning, and many of them are only realizing it now. They have no strategy, no endurance, and no political stamina to stand before him and truly challenge him. Most of them are simply competing for the sake of competition.
From day one, HH knew exactly what he wanted to do once he entered office: redesign the economic system to align with his agenda, reshape the political system to consolidate control, and condition the social system toward praise and loyalty. That is how you know someone understands power and systems.
Let me demonstrate so you do not think I am bluffing.
Let us start with the economy.
HH has deliberately tried to build the economy around legitimate earning principles. Even if someone wants to steal, they now have to attempt to steal “legitimately” through tenders and government contracts. The era of easy free money on the streets is largely gone. He has intentionally promoted the idea that hard work is the path to economic prosperity.
Now, I am not naïve. I am not saying the system is perfect — far from it. What I am saying is that it is deliberate, structured, and effective. He controls the economic system without surrendering it entirely into the hands of political cadres as we saw under previous administrations. Hate him or love him, he is decisive and intentional about what he does.
On the political front, he has made it clear that politics should be disciplined and controlled. Personally, I admire that. We are barely months before elections, yet the country feels as calm and focused as though elections had already passed. That does not happen by accident. That is political engineering at the highest level.
The opposition still does not fully understand what has happened to them.
Now here is the catch.
President HH has made his party extremely attractive because he has maintained a tight grip on authority while ensuring there is only one true center of power. Neither the Secretary General nor the Youth Chairman can overstep his authority. That is political genius. He also has a Vice President whom he knows has no ambition to challenge his presidential authority. This is a man who understands how politics is managed.
Because the UPND is now the most organized political machinery in the country, it has become attractive to political opportunists, especially those coming from the now weakened Patriotic Front. But here is the interesting part: many of those defecting may never even be adopted on the UPND ticket. They will likely have to wait, prove loyalty, and earn trust within the system.
On the social front, he is even more potently dangerous.
With massive CDF allocations, free education, school feeding programs, social cash transfers, cash-for-work initiatives, food security packs, construction of chiefs’ palaces, timely payment of civil servants, and the recruitment of thousands of workers into public service, the man has embedded his social system deeply into the lives of ordinary Zambians.
Of course, urban areas may still produce some protesters, but they will remain a minority.
There are currently 2.7 million of Zambians benefiting from Social Cash Transfer programs, 2.6 million of children who have returned to school because of free education, and 4 million more benefiting from school feeding programs.
These may look like mere statistics on paper, but these are real people — real Zambians — many of whom will ultimately influence the political future of this country.
By now, most people who know me understand that I do not trust our economic, political, and social systems in their current form. However, I also acknowledge those who understand how to make those systems work in their favor, and President HH is undoubtedly one of the greatest architects of systems in modern Zambian politics.
The danger with our current trajectory is that President HH could easily evolve Zambia into a dominant one-party political system. In fact, I believe the foundation for that has already been laid.
How?
First, make leadership so exclusive and structured that anyone aspiring for national leadership feels compelled to join the UPND. Then pass laws and reforms that guarantee overwhelming UPND dominance in both Parliament and local councils.
The next phase would naturally follow.
Immediately after elections — elections which I believe the UPND is likely to win comfortably — some sections of society will begin calling for the extension of the presidential term from five years to seven years. These calls will grow louder and louder. Another group will begin pushing for the complete removal of presidential term limits, arguing that leaders should contest for as long as people want them.
Today, this may sound far-fetched to some people, but tomorrow it may become political reality. One of those options will eventually find its way into the National Assembly and could easily pass.
That is the genius of long-term political engineering. Most current opposition leaders either cannot see this trajectory or are too scared to confront it.
From a purely observational point of view, I admire President HH. He possesses the political courage that most modern Zambian politicians simply do not have.
Do not come here trying to lecture me about democracy. I already told you I do not believe in the current democratic structure as it exists today, so you would only be wasting your time. And do not lecture me about how he will destroy the country because, so far, I have not seen anyone presenting a more coherent alternative to what he is doing.
If you wear political lenses while reading this, you will probably feel upset, confused, or frustrated. But sometimes truth sounds offensive when it challenges comfort zones.
I am merely observing what many people are too emotional or too blinded to see.
Have a blessed day, ba Zambia