By Dr Mwelwa
CHAWAMA HAS SPOKEN: ORPHANED TONSE ALLIANCE STRIKES A BLOW AGAINST UPND
Before we even talk about the vote count, we must talk about the pain hanging over Zambia like a dark cloud—the Lungu family ordeal. Tasila Lungu lost her seat while mourning her father. In African eyes, that alone rewired the national mood.
One traditional leader wrote to me this morning: “We are Africans, we don’t play with the dead.” Then he asked questions the nation has been whispering in disbelief. Who fires someone for grieving a parent? Who drags mourning to court? Who forgets sympathy follows the bereaved, not sponsors?
These are not cultural complaints; they are moral alarms. In Africa, death is not administration—it is a sacred interruption. When leaders mishandle mourning, they don’t just offend a family. They provoke the conscience of a people, and the people respond in silence.
That is why Chawama today is bigger than politics. It is grief turning into a ballot. It is protest wrapped in discipline. It is pain voting without shouting. In Africa, some wounds don’t protest on the streets—they protest in the booth.
Bright Nundwe has done what many thought impossible. In Chawama, the people have spoken with courage, not noise. This victory is not only for FDD, PF, or Tonse Alliance—it is proof that the ballot still has power when citizens refuse to be intimidated.
Congratulations to Bright Nundwe, former Copperbelt Permanent Secretary and FDD candidate, for this hard-fought victory. Chawama did not vote for perfection. It voted for a message. It voted for hope. It voted for a warning that cannot be ignored.
But what makes this victory historic is the angle clearly raised by Dr. Chris Zumani: Tonse Alliance went into Chawama carrying internal disapprovals, wrangles, and visible disorganization. Yet it still emerged victorious against a well-financed ruling party.
In fact, some PF leaders were allegedly behind the confusion of NCP participating and campaigning in the name of ECL and Tasila Lungu. This meant Tonse Alliance faced two rivals in Chawama: UPND, and the political confusion engineered around NCP.
So Tonse Alliance was not just campaigning; it was fighting a double battle. It faced the machinery of government and the sabotage of internal contradictions. Yet the people still chose Tonse. That is not luck. That is national fatigue reaching a boiling point.
When a well-organised ruling alliance clashes with a weaker, divided, and orphaned alliance—only months before a general election—and still loses, the message is simple: the days of UPND dominance are dangerously numbered, not because of propaganda, but because of reality.
Big Brother UPND has been defeated by an “orphaned” Tonse—an alliance without its legitimate stability, yet carrying the people’s pain. That alone is a sign that Zambians have made up their minds: they want change, and no amount of money can buy conviction.
Chawama has reminded Zambia that politics is not owned—it is rented. The people can repossess it. But Tonse must not celebrate like tourists. It must organise like builders. Because unity is not a slogan; unity is a weapon.