🇿🇲 VIEWPOINT | POLICY, POPULISM AND THE LIMITS OF POLITICAL IMAGINATION
The 3rd Liberation Movement (3rd-LM) has thrust itself into national debate with two headline-grabbing proposals: banning men from working as midwives and capping the price of a 25kg bag of mealie meal at K50. Both positions, articulated by party president Enock Roosevelt Tonga, have triggered strong reactions online and raised broader questions about policy seriousness, constitutional limits, and economic literacy in Zambia’s opposition space.
On healthcare, Mr Tonga argues that midwifery should be an exclusively female profession, proposing prison sentences of up to 20 years for men who practise as midwives. His justification rests largely on cultural interpretation of the word “midwife” and moral discomfort with male practitioners attending to women during childbirth. What this position overlooks is that midwifery in Zambia is a regulated medical profession governed by training standards, ethics, and professional councils, not cultural semantics.
Male nurses and midwives are legally trained, certified, and deployed in line with national health needs, particularly in rural areas where staffing shortages are acute.
A blanket ban would immediately conflict with constitutional protections against discrimination, undermine public health delivery, and worsen an already strained health system. It also ignores the reality that professional conduct in healthcare is governed by law, not gender.
On the economy, the proposed K50 price cap on mealie meal is framed as a pro-poor intervention that would allegedly protect households from rising food costs while preserving the free market. The tension is obvious. Price controls of this nature have historically required heavy state subsidies, guaranteed grain supply, and fiscal buffers to avoid market distortions. Without these, such controls risk miller withdrawal, shortages, parallel markets, or unsustainable pressure on the treasury. .
Zambia’s own history offers clear lessons. Past attempts at administratively fixing prices without corresponding fiscal capacity have resulted in delayed payments, miller exits, and supply disruptions. The proposal, as presented, does not explain how millers would absorb costs, how subsidies would be financed, or how inflationary pressures would be contained
The backlash online is therefore less about ideology and more about feasibility. Voters are increasingly interrogating how policies would be implemented, funded, and aligned with existing laws. In this context, the 3rd-LM manifesto has been described by critics as socially regressive on gender and economically simplistic on food pricing.
Supporters, however, see it as bold and unapologetically populist, aimed at tapping into real frustrations around the cost of living and cultural anxieties.
What this episode ultimately exposes is a wider challenge facing Zambia’s opposition politics ahead of 2026. There is growing demand for policy depth rather than slogans, for solutions grounded in constitutionalism, economics, and contemporary social realities. Populist instincts may mobilise attention, but governance requires coherence, legality, and fiscal realism.
The debate sparked by the 3rd-LM is therefore useful, not because the proposals are likely to be adopted, but because they force a national conversation about what serious leadership looks like in a modern Zambia. In an era of complex economic recovery, healthcare staffing shortages, and constitutional safeguards, policies rooted in exclusion or price decree invite scrutiny.
This scrutiny, in itself, is a sign of an alert electorate.
© The People’s Brief | Francine Lilu