🇿🇲 BRIEFING | Antonio Mwanza Urges Mundubile to Study PF’s 2021 Defeat
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) president Antonio Mwanza has urged NRPUP presidential candidate Brian Mundubile to draw lessons from the Patriotic Front’s 2021 electoral defeat, arguing that any opposition seeking to form government must first understand why the former ruling party lost despite enjoying the advantages of incumbency.
Speaking on News Diggers’ Mind Your Business podcast, Mwanza said the PF entered the 2021 elections with state resources, government machinery and the power of incumbency, yet still suffered heavy defeats in provinces such as Western and North-Western.
“They have to learn the lessons from the 2021 elections. We were in power. We had all the resources and all the government machinery. And we lost. We lost very badly in those places, Western and North-Western provinces,” Mwanza said.
He challenged the opposition to honestly examine where the PF went wrong, arguing that repeating the same campaign strategy would produce similar results
“If they have learnt why we lost very badly then, they can turn the wheel around. It’s up to them. I don’t know whether they have learnt or not. If they have learnt from 2021, with all the money, with the power of incumbency and still losing so badly, they should ask: where did we go wrong as PF? And can we use those lessons so that we lose intelligently in 2026?” he said.
Mwanza argued that President Hakainde Hichilema’s 2021 victory was built not only on overwhelming support in traditional UPND strongholds but also on significant gains in provinces previously dominated by the PF.
He cited Lusaka and the Copperbelt, where Hichilema secured clear majorities, while also pointing to improved performances in Muchinga, Northern, Luapula and Eastern provinces compared to previous elections.
According to Mwanza, the lesson for the opposition is to build a genuinely national campaign rather than relying on a handful of perceived strongholds. He said winning competitive provinces such as Lusaka, the Copperbelt and Eastern, while improving performances in Northern, Muchinga and Luapula and reducing losses in Southern, Western and North-Western, would be critical for any realistic pathway to State House.
He also urged opposition parties to pay closer attention to Zambia’s voter distribution, noting that an estimated 5.2 million registered voters live in rural areas, compared with about 3.5 million in urban centres.
Mwanza argued that electoral strategies focusing predominantly on urban mobilisation risk overlooking the numerical advantage offered by rural constituencies.
Beyond campaign messaging, Mwanza stressed the importance of organisation, resource mobilisation and election-day preparedness, calling on opposition parties to establish robust voter protection mechanisms to safeguard their votes at polling stations.
© The People’s Brief | Goran Handya