🇿🇲 EDITORIAL | Hichilema vs PF: Zambia’s Familiar Choice Returns
As 2026 election campaign begins taking shape, one reality is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore: this race is slowly consolidating into a contest between President Hakainde Hichilema and the political ecosystem of the former Patriotic Front now regrouping around Brian Mundubile and the Tonse Alliance.
And the more the campaign unfolds, the clearer the picture becomes.
The language, the mobilisation style, the faces surrounding the campaign, the grievances being amplified, and even the promises being made all point in one direction: this is PF politics attempting to return through another political doorway.
This observation is not emotional. It is structural.
Mundubile’s campaign has increasingly positioned itself around the unfinished emotional legacy of former President Edgar Lungu, promises to release jailed PF figures once government changes, and renewed appeals to political bases that once thrived during the PF years. The message is becoming unmistakable. This is not a fundamentally new political movement offering a different national philosophy. It is a reassembly of a former governing structure that Zambians decisively rejected in 2021.
And history matters in politics.
The PF years were not ordinary years in Zambia’s democratic journey. They were years marked by aggressive borrowing, shrinking fiscal discipline, cadre violence, weakening investor confidence, and eventually sovereign default. Zambia became Africa’s first Covid-era Eurobond defaulter under PF leadership. The kwacha depreciated heavily. Public debt spiralled. Political intimidation became increasingly normalised in sections of national life. By the time Zambians voted in 2021, the country was economically exhausted and politically tense.
It is therefore politically revealing that many of the loudest voices in today’s opposition were central actors within that same system.
Now, four years later, the campaign rhetoric emerging from the Mundubile camp raises equally serious questions. One moment the campaign promises freedom for jailed PF “bigwigs” through regime change. Another moment comes the promise to hand Black Mountain back to youths on the Copperbelt, reviving one of the most controversial symbols of informal mining patronage and cadre influence from the PF era.
This is not accidental messaging.
Black Mountain is not merely a mining issue. It became a political culture. It represented a period where informal structures, political patronage, and cadre mobilisation increasingly blurred the boundaries between empowerment and disorder. Many Zambians remember that period clearly. They remember the violence. They remember the lawlessness. They remember how quickly political muscle began overpowering institutions.
And now, as campaigns intensify, many of the same cadres who once terrorised markets, bus stations, and public spaces are visibly re-emerging around opposition mobilisation structures. The difference today is that they no longer control State authority. This reality alone has significantly restrained the atmosphere.
However, this does not mean the current government is flawless. It is not.
Load shedding damaged businesses and households. The cost of living remains high. Fuel prices continue frustrating citizens. Fertiliser costs remain contentious. Many young people still feel economically excluded despite broader macroeconomic improvements. These are real governance pressures, and the ruling party must account for them honestly.
But leadership must also be judged fairly against measurable outcomes.
Before entering office, the UPND promised to recruit 30,000 teachers. More than 40,000 were recruited. Thousands of health workers followed. Free education was introduced nationally and later anchored into law. Meal allowances for students were restored after being removed under PF. Debt restructuring, once dismissed by critics as impossible, was successfully negotiated. Foreign reserves improved significantly. Inflation moderated from earlier peaks. Mining investment returned. Constituency Development Fund allocations increased dramatically, pushing unprecedented resources into local communities.
No administration in Zambia’s democratic history has decentralised development financing at the scale currently being witnessed through CDF.
These are not slogans. They are measurable state actions.
And this is where the opposition’s current challenge becomes increasingly visible. Beyond criticism, what exactly is the alternative governing philosophy being offered?
So far, many of Mundubile’s proposals mirror policies already being implemented: mining-led industrialisation, tourism expansion, agro-processing, digital economy participation, and youth empowerment. The speeches are emotionally louder than the policy distinctions underneath them.
At The People’s Brief, we believe governments must always be scrutinised aggressively. Power must never become comfortable. Democracies require strong opposition voices, institutional accountability, and critical journalism. But patriotism also requires honesty.
And honestly speaking, based on the current field of contenders, we do not yet see a compelling national case for changing government in August. Not because Zambia has no problems. It does. Not because citizens are fully satisfied. They are not.
But because leadership transitions must be anchored on a credible alternative stronger than the system being replaced. Elections cannot become exercises in political nostalgia, emotional grievance, party score settling or recycled power structures seeking re-entry without demonstrating meaningful ideological or governance transformation.
At this moment, President Hichilema still appears, by performance, stability, and institutional direction, to be the strongest available option among those seeking the presidency.
Yes, this may change if the opposition presents a sharper national vision, a coherent economic alternative, and leadership visibly detached from the failures of the PF era.
But for now, Zambia’s political map increasingly resembles a familiar choice: imperfect continuity versus uncertain regression.
And many Zambians still remember too clearly what regression looked like.
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