TEN REASONS WHY UPND WILL LOSE THE AUGUST GENERAL ELECTIONS – Sean Tembo

TEN REASONS WHY UPND WILL LOSE THE AUGUST GENERAL ELECTIONS

By Sean Tembo – PeP President

1. Lack of Tangible Economic Development-: National economic development is in two parts. There’s theoretical economic development that is based on statistics such as GDP growth rate, amount of foreign reserves at BoZ, inflation rate etcetera.

And then there is visible economic development that the people can see and feel such as the cost of living, infrastructure development etcetera. Over the past 4 and half years, the national economic development goals which the UPND claim to have scored are all theoretical and have no positive impact on the living standards of the masses.

In the minds of the UPND, inflation is synonymous with the cost of living. In reality, the two are totally different. The masses expected their lives to improve, when UPND came into office in 2021. Today, their lives are worse off.

2. Lack of Vibrant Party Structures-: Unlike PF in 2011, UPND in 2021 was not propelled to victory on the basis of strong party structures across the country, but rather on the basis of a social media wave.

After winning elections, UPND still did not invest time or resources to build proper structures across the country. This was evident during the various by-elections outside Lusaka. They were forming structures at the time of the by-elections.

Therefore, UPND will definitely struggle to put up an effective countrywide campaign drive in this year’s general elections. More so that the positive social media wave that they enjoyed in 2021, is not available this year. If anything, they have to overcome a negative social media wave this year.

The cyber laws may have helped to prevent the masses from coming out as strongly against UPND as they did against PF in 2021, but there is a very strong undercurrent of negative social media wave against UPND.

3. Heavy-handed Use of Police-: Traditionally, the Zambian people have always harboured a resentment against any Government that has a high appetite of using the police against citizens. While the UPND Government managed to reduce (not eliminate) the high levels of public cadrerism that we witnessed during the PF regime, they replaced it with police harassment.

Generally, the Zambian people find it hard to swallow images of Police broking the Archbishop of Lusaka from accessing and entering his own office at the Cathedral of the Child Jesus, or with a grinder, trying to cut down the door at Sean Tembo’s house and ECL’s house.

As to what is more damaging to the image of a Government, between cadrerism and police harassment, my take is that police harassment is more damaging. That is because a Government can attempt to disown the actions of cadres, even arrest them to cleanse itself, but it cannot disown the actions of the Police, because the Police are Government itself.

Therefore, my take is that there is currently more public resentment against the UPND Government for the public harassment by its Police, than there was public resentment against the PF Government for it’s cadrerism prior to 2021 general elections.

4. Lack of Empathy and Kindness-: Culturally the Zambian people believe in empathy and kindness more than any other people that I know of in the whole world. It is only in Zambia that you can send your child to go and ask for mealie meal from a neighbor, and for sure, they’ll come back with mealie meal.

Our appetite for empathy and kindness is even more pronounced during times of funerals. Unlike other cultures, the Zambian people truly mourn and share the burden of the sorrow with the bereaved family. Therefore, the fact that the ECL’s body is today still lying frozen in a fridge, unburied, because of a disagreement between the Government and the family, has really exposed the UPND Government as lacking empathy and kindness.

In the eyes of the majority of the Zambian people, it is not about who is right or wrong between the family and the Government. Even if the family was wrong in it’s wishes of how to bury ECL, the Government should have complied with those wishes. It is called empathy and kindness towards the bereaved family.

That is what our Zambian culture demands. By being willing to keep ECL body frozen in a fridge for more than 8 months, unburied, the UPND Government has just demonstrated to the Zambian people, how bad-hearted it really is. Even if ECL was buried today, this impasse will still have a huge negative impact on the electoral performance of the UPND on 13th August this year.

5. Lack of Reliable Party Officials-: The UPND faces the same institutional challenge that other previous ruling parties faced … who to trust with the money needed to mobilization activities. The discontment among senior party officials, regarding the distribution of campaign money, was surprisingly registered in the media, during and after the recent Chawama parliamentary by-election. That is a typical challenge of any ruling party, especially one that has stayed in opposition for a prolonged period of time, and depended on the contributions and sacrifices of certain key members, who now feel entitled to recover their ‘investment’, and will therefore, unapologetically stuff their pockets with money meant for party mobilization activities.

I saw that after the fracas in Chawama, over campaign money, President Hakainde Hichilema decided to send his Political Advisor  to camp in Kasama, for the mayoral by-election. Ostensibly to ensure that campaign money was properly distributed and reached the grassroots. But the question is; will the President clone his Political Advisor for the general elections in August?

6. Lack of Regional Balancing in Public Appointments-: The other day, I was going through the results of the 2021 general elections by ward. I was comparing those results to previous general elections since 1991. It then occured to me that the UPND in 2021 was more overwhelmingly voted into office, than even the MMD in 1991. The UPND enjoyed massive nationwide support in 2021. Even the ward seats that they lost, it was by a very small margin. And that was across the entire country. That is how much faith the Zambian people placed in the UPND in general and President Hakainde Hichilema in particular. In other words, they had a very good thing going. Had the UPND properly run the affairs of this country, they would have been in office for a very long time to come.

In my view, one of the biggest mistakes that President Hakainde Hichilema made from the onset, was to start talking about how his tribe was brutalized by the PF regime. That was a totally wrong and unnecessary narrative. The PF brutalized everyone and not just the Tonga people. I am a Tembo and an Easterner, but I was hacked with a panga by PF cadres in Cairo Road, on 18th November 2018. Therefore, the brutality of the PF was not directed at any particular tribe, but rather, on all their political opponents at the time.

However, for reasons best known to himself, the President still insists to this day that only his tribe was targeted. He has gone further to play victim and to tilt public appointments in favor of his tribe. In my view, that is a big mistake. Based on the results of the 2021 general elections, Mr Hakainde Hichilema’s presidency was more national in character than any other President in this history of Zambia.

Therefore, President Hakainde Hichilema does not have any right to complain that he was segregated against by the Zambian people, on the basis of his tribe. Maybe Mwanawasa or Sata or ECL may have had that right, but definitely not President Hakainde Hichilema. His unnecessary and persistent complaints that his tribe was victimized, together with his tilted public appointments in favor of his tribe, have had the overall effect of undermining public confidence of his ability to unite the nation. This will definitely have a significant adverse effect on UPND’s electoral performance this August.

7. A General Lack of Integrity Among Senior Government Officials-: The general public has a legitimate expectation that when a Government official says something, that something is true. However, the UPND Government has suffered a credibility crisis from the word go. One minute, a Government Minister says we have paid all the farmers. The next minute, another Government Minister apologizes for not having paid the farmers. Meanwhile, there is no explanation or apology for the conflicting statements. Just mere silence. The overall effect of such scenes, is that there is a general loss of public confidence in the entire Government. Once people lose confidence in you, they’ll treat whatever you say, however well-meaning, with scepticism. At the end of the day, it becomes very difficult for you to remain on office, as a Government, if the people that you govern don’t trust you. But for me, I perfectly understand the UPND on this issue. You see, the UPND is a party that ascended to office largely by a social media wave that was established by propaganda against the PF regime. Not that the PF didn’t do the things that they were accused of doing. Only that the UPND exaggerated those things. So, having ascended to office through propaganda, the UPND trust propaganda. It is their default solution for any problem that they encounter, in their governance of the nation. And they believe that the can stay in power through propaganda. But in this digital world, it is increasingly difficult to successfully lie to the people. After August, the UPND will likely agree with me.

8. Lack of Visible Infrastructure Development-: Although infrastructure development on its own, cannot win you an election, it actually helps those who want to support you, to justify why they should. Apart from the Lusaka-Ndola dual carriage way project, which is a scandal, the UPND Government has failed to put up any visible infrastructure. And yet, they have borrowed more than the PF did in 10 years. For example, the PF found domestic debt at about K28 billion in 2011, and they took it to K93 billion by 2021. On the other hand, the UPND have taken domestic debt from K93 billion to K253 billion within 4 and half years. While we were able to see what the PF did with the money that they borrowed, we cannot see what the UPND have done with the money that they have borrowed. Yet, with all it’s successful development of airports, roads, hospitals and universities, the people still decided to vote PF out of office in 2021. What more a barehanded UPND this August?

9. Internal Resentment Due to Selective Opulence-: The United Party for National Development was in opposition for more than 20 years. Like all political parties, some people joined, and some left, during this period. Just like some people contributed more than others, towards UPND’s ascendance to power. However, only selected members of UPND, are today enjoying the opulence of having their party in power. The rest are merely gleeing with envy. This problem is especially aggravated by today’s digital world, because when the party gifts former PF cadre Kalimanshi with a brand new vehicle, the rest of the party membership, across the country, are able to witness it. Much to their chagrin. This has inevitably created massive resentment within UPND circles. You think the opposition is not united? Well, the UPND is even more divided than the opposition. Only President Hakainde Hichilema is trying to keep the UPND together, but he is not succeeding. The true extent of how divided the UPND was, will only be seen when the results of the 13th August general elections begin to trickle in. It will be a disaster.

10. Stepping on Too Many People’s Toes-: After ascending to office in the 2021 general elections, the UPND Government started fights with too many powerful people in the country. They really wanted to flex their power. In my considered view, most of these fights were totally unnecessary. Am sure at this point, the UPND has forgotten about most of the people that they hounded. But the people that they hounded, have not forgotten. And they will do everything within their power, to ensure that UPND is kicked out of office this August.

In Eastern Province, we have a saying that “… mudya makoko saiwala, koma mudya nyemba aiwala…”. Loosely translated, this means “… when you do something wrong to someone, you may forget, but the person you did wrong will not forget …”. At this point, my advice to UPND members and supporters is that they should physically and psychologically start preparing for a life out of office, after August. The public’s desire to remove UPND is too strong, and will easily overcome the opposition’s weakness of lack of unity. Anyway, the Future is SET ✌🏼

///END

SET 21.02.2026