THE EXHAUSTED PLAYBOOK: UPND’S LATE CAMPAIGN PANIC- Professor Namukolo Miyanda

By Professor Namukolo Miyanda, Pan-Africanist and Governance Expert

19th July, 2026

The logic is inescapable: the United Party for National Development has exhausted its campaign strategies. With the 13th August 2026 general elections only weeks away, the party’s foot soldiers and advisors have no choice but to come into the open to campaign and save UPND from political embarrassment. This is not strategy. It is salvage.

This desperate shift exposes a deeper political contradiction. Nine months ago, UPND sympathizers boasted that the 2026 general elections would be a walk over because, in their words, there was no opposition. Today, those same voices are engaged in tireless comparisons of crowd sizes. The contest is now framed, by their own admission, between President Hakainde Hichilema on the UPND ticket and Brian Mundubile, the aspiring presidential candidate on the NRPUP ticket who commands support countrywide.

What changed? The ground shifted because the premise collapsed. Arrogance of incumbency dismissed every credible challenge until reality intervened. A ruling party that begins to measure its viability against an opponent it once ignored is a party that has conceded the argument. That is the definition of strategic bankruptcy. Campaign machinery designed for unchallenged dominance malfunctions the moment dominance is contested. It cannot manufacture consent where none exists.

Consider the evidence: the sudden visibility of party activists in communities is not organic mobilization. It is crisis management dressed as outreach. When formal campaign structures fail to inspire confidence, you deploy foot soldiers as a last resort. This is not expansion. It is retreat executed in public. The disproportionate reliance on aggressive social media posturing, rather than demonstrable grassroots presence, confirms the gap between digital noise and physical reality. If the ground was secured, there would be no need to shout.

For a party that campaigned on unmatched development delivery under the New Dawn Government, the necessity of emergency campaign reinforcements 25 days before an election is a self-indictment. Governing records campaign for themselves when they are real. Roads, clinics, jobs, and lower living costs persuade voters without surrogates. When those records are absent, you send people out to manufacture enthusiasm that policy could not create.

Therefore, the 13th August election is not a referendum on promises. It is a referendum on performance. The panic now visible in UPND ranks suggests the party already knows the verdict
that referendum.

The conclusion follows from the premises: the people should turn out in large numbers to vote for Brian Mundubile and then remain vigilant in order to protect their cherished votes. The future will not be given, but it must be claimed. Kinako has come, and Zambia is ready for Brian Mundubile.