THE ONE TERM RULE VIBES ON UPND NOT BACKED BY ANY ELECTORAL AND POLITICAL HISTORY TRENDS
Many assertions have been put across that the New Dawn government and its president might be a one term ones based on the analysis of their stay in power for 100 days of about 1800 days (5years) due to the so-called “broken” electoral and campaign promises.
This conclusion may be so faulty in many ways to rely on due to many factors and more especially that the President and his government are in transition zone and still under the dictate of the former ruling party, government and president’s national budget.
In addition, the political and Electoral trends are important in research to consider and help come up with conclusions.
It is like a man who marries a woman with 3 months baby and people expect him to impregnate the woman immediately otherwise he will be labelled as impotent.
One cannot make conclusive conclusions on a sample of days which is not representative and without considering electoral trends that form the political and Electoral histories of the country.
In Zambia, there must be a strong rival party born out of any General Election that has never been in govt to unseat a sitting govt.
This newly born rival party must have considerably enough elected MPs and popular vote to give a threat to a sitting government
This is backed by evidence of electoral and political trends in Zambia and has been a trend from 1964 to-date.
In 1963, UNIP came second to the colonial ruling party and by the 1964 elections, UNIP won majority seat to negotiate the formation of the new government.
In 1991, UNIP lost to MMD though MMD had no MP in Parliament on its ticket but UNIP had internal revolt due to its overstay in power 27 years and long resistance to multipartyism.
In 2001, UPND almost unseated MMD due to its good performance in the by-election before the 2001 general election and it came out of the 2001 general election with 49 MPs second only to the ruling party MMD.
In 2006, PF leapt from 1 MP to 48 and UPND reduced from 49 to 26 MPs. PF still failed to beat MMD but remained a political and Electoral force and a thorn to MMD.
In 2011 after PF stayed in opposition for 10 years while UPND under HH for 5 years In opposition though cumulative years in opposition was 13 years, MMD was ousted by PF which garnered close to 80 MPs while UPND maintained its 3rd position with enough MPs relegating MMD to being the 2nd largest opposition as former ruling party.
By 2016, MMD had been relegated to a distant 3rd with only 3 MPs with UPND displacing it with 58 MPs and became a political threat to PF than MMD was esp that it was engulfed in internal leadership wrangles just like UNIP after its defeat in 1991.
In 2021, UPND pushed out PF of the number one popular party and relegated it to a close 2nd position opposition party with no 3rd party to reckon with.
Currently, PF the 2nd largest opposition party both in terms of representation in Parliament and popular vote is engulfed in leadership guesswork.
In other words, it has no president as the current place holder is developed shyness to engage in politics while the 3rd distant popular party in terms of popular vote but with an MP is engaged in leadership wrangles which have no signs of ending soon.
With the foregoing and as things stand now and following the predictable political and Electoral trends in the country, the next party to be strong enough to act as a major opposition to be a threat to UPND may be after the 2031.
Voting back the former ruling party into power may be a tow order going by the political and Electoral trends so far.
Therefore, opposition still have a lot to do to even reduce the 59% win by the UPND in 2026 so that it either come to 50-50 support to force a run-off or an outright win by the opposition.
The current opposition needs a lot of nurturing, support and aggressiveness in vote canvassing otherwise, it is just weak and most of it existing on paper only at the Registrar of Societies.
However, the concerns being expressed by the electorates and citizens especially on perceived “broken” electoral promises must be reflected on and be addressed in the long run.
I submit
McDonald Chipenzi