BREBNER Changala says the UK-based
In its latest report on Zambia generated on March 30, the Economics Intelligence Unit (EIU)
expects this year’s elections to be the last in which the country’s main opposition leader Hakainde Hichilema is contesting.
The EIU believes that because Hichilema has already failed in five previous elections, there may not be need for him to stand again in 2026.
“The presidential and legislative elections that are scheduled for August 12th 2021 are likely to be the last polls that Mr Hichilema will contest as opposition leader, as he has lost five previous presidential polls, including two unscheduled elections that were prompted by the deaths of presidents in 2008 and 2014,” notes the EIU. “The previous presidential election, in 2016, was won by the incumbent president Edgar Lungu in disputed circumstances, and marred by pre- and post-election violence. Mr Lungu’s government’s subsequent authoritarian behaviour towards Mr Hichilema gave credence to the opposition candidate’s claims that he was the rightful victor of the 2016 poll, and this has proved sufficient to win his party’s united backing for one last attempt to unseat Mr Lungu.”
But Changala, a good governance activist, wonders why the EIU keeps predicting President Lungu’s victory even when the Constitution does not allow him to stand.
“And, in any case, who has told this same tabloid that President Edgar Lungu does qualify to appear on the ballot paper? How are they so sure? So, they’re telling us that our judicial system will not function or does not function? That’s an insult to the judiciary,” he said. “How are they convinced that the people of Zambia will go en masse as they registered en masse to go and line up just for the sake of retaining an oppressor? That is abusing the citizenry; and that is the strongest insult that can be transmitted by a group of people or individuals.”
Changala said the EIU was portraying itself as an appendage of the PF in the manner it kept on with its predictions even when the situation on the ground was different.
“But my reaction to that story is that the Economics Intelligence Unit is taking the people of Zambia for granted. The Economics Intelligence Unit is telling the people of Zambia very loudly that you are a bunch of fools that can be presided over by the dictator that has reduced your democratic tenets, that has abused your human rights, that has destroyed the economy and that has divided the country on tribal lines,” Changala added. “The Economics Intelligence Unit which looks like an appendage of the PF, I must conclude without doubt, and I stand to be corrected if I’m wrong, it’s like that Unit is managed from PF secretariat because an analytical publication or journal cannot make these unfounded predictions in the midst of a party failing to meet people’s expectations and needs in a country where freedom of association, the freedom of the media is being curtailed on daily basis. And yet, somebody can sit down with a pen and paper and analyse on how a dictator and a political party that is abusing its own citizens can be so much loved and voted for and win an election.”
Changala described EIU reports as “the worst insult that you can attribute to the people”.
According to him, the EIU seeks to portray Zambians as “idiots and fools living in a fool’s paradise”.
“This insult to the people of Zambia cannot be accepted, tolerated. We have the celebration from the State media, the celebration from the PF because this fake tabloid is transmitting the message of campaign so that Zambians can live in poverty in perpetuity and continue to live in bondage under a party that has lost legitimacy; under a President that has lost legitimacy,” said Changala. “Their prediction has been very consistent and they stick to that. And in the recent report they even confirm the retirement of Mr Hakainde Hichilema from active politics. And this has excited the ruling party and they call it very good journalism. And the state media is carrying the banner headlines which normally they would not give that headline banner to an opposition leader. They would not give that banner headline to a civil society leader; but they’ll give it to anybody who praises and gives them the comfort that PF will be in Zambia forever.”