ANALYSIS | Who Really Hates Hichilema? Inside Politics of Entitlement & Tribe

⬆️ ANALYSIS | Who Really Hates Hichilema? Inside Politics of Entitlement & Tribe

“The level of hatred for me is shocking, you can see and even touch the venom, I did not choose where to be born.”

With that sentence at his November 25 State House press conference, President Hakainde Hichilema stepped straight into Zambia’s most sensitive political fault line: the intersection of tribe, power and entitlement. His critics framed it as emotional and manipulative.

His supporters have called it overdue honesty. The truth sits in a more uncomfortable middle ground that goes back a decade, not 72 hours.

There is documented evidence that a section of the political class has used tribal language against Hichilema and his support base since at least 2015. That year, then PF secretary general Davies Chama is on record saying UPND would only rule “maybe 100 years from now” and tying that prospect to Tongas being “polygamous by nature” and needing “more children” before producing a president.

Traditional leaders from Southern Province petitioned State House over those remarks and later publicly “forgave” him, confirming that the words were real and offensive, not a social media invention. The same period saw the Mulobezi by election violence, which resulted into the 2025 prosecution of Chama in connection with the shooting of a UPND supporter.

This reinforces a perception that one clique viewed Hichilema and his region as expendable obstacles, not equal competitors.

Alongside that rhetoric grew a narrative that Hichilema was a tribal candidate leading a “one province party” that could never govern. PF figures and aligned outlets leaned on the “Mapatizya formula” label to brand UPND as the home of organised violence from Southern Province rather than a national alternative. That storyline did not only question his politics. It questioned the legitimacy of his support base as a whole.

When Hichilema now speaks of “entitlement” and says “you feel entitled is in your head,” he is not inventing history. He is responding to a long running pattern in which some actors presented power as an inheritance of a loose establishment for them alone. This is the clique that treated his rise as an affront to an unwritten order.

The complication for the President is that the same sentence is now being recast as tribal victimhood. Opponents argue that by saying “I did not choose where to be born,” he is cloaking himself in regional martyrdom to shield himself from scrutiny.

They point to his strongholds in Southern, Western and North Western Provinces to claim he is the main beneficiary of identity politics. That line ignores the 2021 map. ECZ data shows Hichilema winning about 59 percent of the national vote and taking Central, Lusaka and Copperbelt, while making gains in Eastern and parts of the north.

https://youtu.be/p_uX96ZUjhI?si=BIphHv-Z6X69OvXq

Observer missions described the result as a broad anti incumbent wave anchored in economic anger and governance fatigue, not a one tribe revolt. If the country as a whole “hated” him on birth grounds, that outcome would have been mathematically impossible.

There is also a clergy dimension that the President touched indirectly but did not name. His press conference remarks about some church voices becoming “hosts of negative talk and hatred” reflect a visible pattern in which a small but loud group of priests and bishops speak of him in language that tracks opposition talking points.

One priest is widely quoted as having said it would have been better to rig the 2021 election than allow Hichilema to rule. That is not standard pastoral criticism of policy. It is an elite statement about who is acceptable in State House. At the same time, other church leaders have condemned tribalism and violence across the board and have warned both government and opposition against fuelling division. So it is inaccurate to say “the church hates HH.”

The evidence supports a narrower claim: a clique within religious and political circles resents the disruption his victory brought to old patronage corridors.

What the President did not address directly is his own side’s contribution to tension. Some UPND officials have used sweeping language about PF strongholds and past rulers that deepens suspicion in the opposite direction. The recent incidents in Chingola, Kabwe and at the PF Secretariat, coupled with mixed messaging from UPND structures before the party ordered silence, damaged his claim to the moral high ground on violence.

When he now says “you cannot hide in UPND and commit crimes” and threatens to go “very heavy on violence,” he is trying to reclaim that ground. The problem is that citizens remember both PF killings and UPND cadres today. An honest analysis must hold both realities: yes, PF era brutality was more widespread and deadly; yes, current abuses still matter and cannot be washed away by pointing at the past.

The risk in the current debate is that everyone is talking past the core issue. Hichilema’s statement about hatred is not mainly about personal feelings. It is about an entrenched belief in parts of the establishment that power belongs to a revolving inner circle and that any outsider who disrupts that circle must be delegitimised, whether through tribal slurs, clerical attacks or constant claims of stolen victory.

On the other side, there is a temptation within the ruling camp to treat every criticism from that space as proof of conspiracy and to dismiss genuine concerns about governance, cost of living and constitutional reform as the work of “haters.” Both impulses are dangerous. One seeks to lock the country back into a closed club. The other risks turning legitimate scrutiny into a loyalty test.

For Zambians trying to make sense of the storm, the facts matter more than spin. There is clear, recorded tribal and exclusionary rhetoric against Hichilema and Tongas from named figures since 2015. There is equally clear electoral evidence that millions of citizens across provinces and ethnic groups voted for him in 2021. There are priests and politicians whose language about him crosses the line from critique into personal hostility and entitlement.

There are also many who oppose him on policy grounds without invoking tribe. A serious conversation about “hatred” should start from that layered reality, not from slogans that portray him as either a sainted victim or a tribal schemer.

The President’s words will continue to fuel argument because they touch old wounds and current fears. The useful test for any analysis is simple. Does it account for the receipts on both sides, or does it hide them to protect a preferred camp. A country trying to hold together under economic pressure and political strain cannot afford convenient amnesia. It needs memory, accuracy and maturity.

Anything less turns real grievances and real progress into weapons for the same small clique that has always treated Zambia as its private chessboard.

If you have insights, receipts or perspectives on this debate, write to us on editor.peoplesbrief@gmail.com.

© The People’s Brief | Ollus R. Ndomu