DID YOU KNOW? 🇿🇲
Until 1999, the MMD led by Frederick Chiluba had a clean sweep of all the then 19 parliamentary seats in Southern Province.
That changed dramatically when the former ruling party lost the strategically important Mazabuka Constituency to the newly formed United Party for National Development (UPND) in a by-election that was necessitated by the death of area MP Bennie Mwiinga.
At the time, Southern Province was considered one of the MMD’s strongest political fortresses in Zambia, rivalled only by President Chiluba’s home province of Luapula in terms of areas where opposition parties and independent candidates had struggled to make any meaningful inroads
For the MMD, Southern Province was not just another province it was practically a political fortress with the gates firmly shut.
Then came Mazabuka.
The UPND didn’t exactly knock politely on the door.
It walked in and took a seat.
And that seemingly isolated by-election would prove to be an early indication that the political map of Southern Province was beginning to change.
Politics, as they say, has no permanent friends or permanent strongholds.
Sometimes, all it takes is one by-election to discover that the “fortress” was never quite as impregnable as everyone thought.