UPND Embraced the IMF and Will Lose the People on 13th August, 2026
_By Professor Namukolo Miyanda, Pan-Africanist and Governance Expert_
_17th July 2026_
When the United Party for National Development took office in August 2021, it inherited a debt but had no clever plan on how to dismantle it. By December 2022, it had embraced the International Monetary Fund through a $1.3 billion Extended Credit Facility. The promise was stability. The outcome, three years later, is a textbook case of political self-harm. Governments that enter IMF programmes rarely survive the next election, and UPND has followed the script with startling obedience.
The logic is brutal but consistent. First, a ruling party facing fiscal distress turns to the IMF as lender of last resort. Second, prior actions and structural benchmarks compress demand: subsidies are cut, wage bills are frozen, currency depreciation is tolerated, and new taxes are imposed. Third, households feel the shock immediately through higher fuel, food, and electricity prices while jobs do not materialize. Fourth, the opposition frames the next election as a referendum on “IMF hardship.” Incumbents lose, even when reserves or deficits improve on paper.
Zambia has been here before. After concluding its Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility in 2004 and receiving HIPC debt relief, the MMD government removed subsidies and restrained public wages (IMF, 2005). GDP growth improved, but maize meal and fuel costs rose sharply between 2008 and 2010, and formal sector employment stagnated (Central Statistical Office, 2011). In 2011, the MMD lost to Michael Sata’s Patriotic Front, which campaigned directly against “IMF-induced suffering” (Resnick, 2014). The lesson was clear: balance sheets do not vote; hungry citizens do.
UPND repeated the cycle. To meet IMF targets, it removed fuel and electricity subsidies, increased the cost of borrowing, and tightened public spending. Liquidity dried up. Small businesses in Lusaka, Kitwe, and Mongu rationed stock. Mealie meal breached K300 per 25kg bag in 2024. Fertilizer prices doubled for smallholder farmers. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Finance cited import cover and debt restructuring milestones as proof of success. Figures without food are fiction. Debt deals without dinner are deception.
The pattern is not Zambian exceptionalism; it is structural. Ghana’s NDC entered a $918 million IMF programme in April 2015 (IMF, 2015). Utility tariffs rose 59% and inflation peaked at 19.2% (Ackah et al., 2017). In December 2016, John Mahama lost to Nana Akufo-Addo, who ran on “the IMF is not an option” (Gyimah-Boadi, 2017). Argentina’s Macri secured a $57 billion Stand-By Arrangement in 2018 (IMF, 2018). By 2019, inflation exceeded 53%, poverty hit 35.5%, and he lost to Alberto Fernández amid voter anger over utility bills (INDEC, 2019; Sturzenegger, 2020). Ecuador’s Moreno signed a $4.2 billion deal in 2019 (IMF, 2019). Fuel subsidy removal triggered 11 days of national strikes, and his party was wiped out in 2021 (BBC News, 2019; Ortiz, 2021). Sri Lanka’s Rajapaksa government took $2.9 billion in 2023 (IMF, 2023). Electricity tariffs rose 75%, food inflation averaged 49%, and in September 2024 the SLPP polled 3.2% and lost power (Central Bank of Sri Lanka, 2024; Wickremesinghe, 2024). Pakistan’s PML-N signed a $3 billion arrangement in July 2023 (IMF, 2023). Electricity tariffs rose 26%, inflation hit 31.5%, and in February 2024 it lost its majority (Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, 2024; Gallup Pakistan, 2024).
In each case, fiscal consolidation front-loaded pain on consumers while benefits accrued later and diffusely. The IMF’s own Independent Evaluation Office found that programme countries suffered larger contractions in public investment and slower recovery in employment than non-programme peers between 2000 and 2015 (IEO, 2016). In least developed countries, where social safety nets are weak, the pass-through from administered price hikes to household welfare is direct. Citizens revolt at the ballot box because they cannot wait for “medium-term stability” when supper is at stake today.
UPND’s specific vulnerability is timing. It signed the IMF deal in 2022 and faces voters on 13th August 2026. The electoral calendar does not align with the reform payoff period. Debt restructuring applause from Washington and London has not reduced the price of relish in Chawama or fertilizer in Chipata. Instead, the deal reduced money in circulation. The Ministry of Finance celebrates external awards while poverty remains stuck at 60%. The “New Dawn” now reminds citizens of five years of hardship, not hope.
A finance minister who answers mealie meal prices with graphs and tells mothers to trust “analytical methodology” commits political suicide by PowerPoint. That is the Minister of Figures’ legacy: a dual economy where foreign investors receive tax incentives, equity in mines, and swift approvals, while local suppliers get consultative meetings and press statements. Inclusive growth became extraction with a Zambian flag on it. Factories stayed shut. Graduates kept selling talk-time. Reserves were propped up while the trade imbalance widened.
Opposition parties are already using the same playbook that worked in Ghana, Argentina, and Sri Lanka. They tie every price shock to the IMF and every IMF condition to UPND. They do not need to lie. They only need to quote the Minister’s speeches back to the people who live a different reality. You cannot eat a percentage. You cannot survive on “New Dawn” if dawn never comes.
The record from Zambia to Sri Lanka over the last 25 years is unambiguous: incumbents who embrace the IMF often fail to survive the next election. UPND assumed office in 2021, embraced the IMF in 2022, and will face voters in 2026 with that choice on the ballot. If history holds, and it has in six countries across three continents, UPND will lose the election because it chose lenders over citizens, charts over children, and figures over food.