THE TIME FOR CHANGE IS NOW! – WHY VOTE FOR THE BRIAN MUNDUBILE/MAKEBI ZULU TICKET ON 13 AUGUST 2026″
By Chishala Kateka for President – New Heritage Party
As New Heritage Party, we have taken note of a number of HH/UPND supporters waxing lyrical about the fact that HH has performed well, economically, and therefore must be given another 5-year mandate.
Our colleagues, though well meaning, seem to be missing the point.
During the MMD era, our country had, undoubtedly the best economic indicators that we have ever had since independence to date. Late former President Banda had these firmly tucked under his belt, yet, Zambians unceremoniously booted him out. Why? Because Zambians felt that, even though the elite and educated within the nation could proudly point to these indicators, experience a fairly comfortable life, the average Zambian did not and could not put the economic indicators on the table to feed their families. It was as simple as that.
As we have stated before, leading the Zambian nation entails taking into account and succeeding in many aspects – not merely the economic. How one governs, relates to the people, unites the nation, rules according to the rule of law, respecting and upholding the National Constitution as well as understanding and having respect for what the Zambians themselves aspire and stand for.
Zambians, in 1964 fought for their political independence and in 1991 decisively chose to be led under a multi-party democracy.
Zambians are not blind and are asking themselves the question: Will the hard-won multi-party democracy survive in our country if we were to vote for HH/UPND? This threat has not had to be considered during any other election since the historic 1991 transition from UNIP’s one-party rule to MMD-led multi-party democracy. It has now. Why is Zambia once again confronted with this “existential question”?
The optics indicate that we have much cause to worry.
OUR DEMOCRACY IS VERY MUCH UNDER THREAT
From the day the UPND formed government, we have watched a deliberate and systematic effort to shut down constitutionally and legally guaranteed rights and freedoms. The weaponisation of state institutions has become the order of the day:
1. The Judiciary, Parliament, Registrar of Societies, Police and other security agencies have been deployed not to serve the people, but to limit political organization, to block assembly, and to silence dissenting voices.
2. Opposition parties have been targeted. New political formations have been restricted and blocked. Critics have been hounded, harassed, and criminalized. Many of our colleagues languish in prisons, while others have been forced into exile for fear of their lives.
3. The nation is being polarized along ethnic, regional and other sectarian lines. Instead of uniting us, this government has resorted to whipping up historic fault-lines to secure support from its regional base.
4. Laws and regulations have been amended and applied in a manner that places near-unlimited and dictatorial power in the presidency. The gains we won in 1991 – the right to organize, to speak freely, to choose our leaders – are at real risk of being lost altogether if the UPND is allowed another term.
A government that shows intolerance to the very existence of opposition is a government preparing to rule without the people.
13 August 2026, is not an ordinary election. We are faced with a choice that will define our next generation.
ECONOMY STABILITY WITHOUT FREEDOM IS NOT PROGRESS
Government supporters will point to economic stability and isolated projects. Even if we were to grant that some progress has been made, “statistics alone cannot justify the surrender of our freedoms”.
Real development and human rights are inseparable. Zambians rejected dictatorship in 1991, whether benign or “benevolent”.
The truth on the ground is different as regards our economy. Zambians:
1. have, for the past five years, experienced a high and rising cost of living crisis in tandem with an economy that has had its liquidity sucked out of it.
2. are faced with a collapsing public service.
3. offered below standard social services; Overcrowded schools, lack of essential medicines in hospitals, and poor agricultural policies that hurt small-scale farmers.
4. are second class citizens in their own country as regards the economy and resources; Our economy has been handed over to foreign interests. There is a lack of local ownership in large-scale mining. Our land policy favors foreigners and the rich.
Zambians cannot eat GDP figures while their freedom of speech is in jail and their constitution is being undermined.
THE BRIAN MUNDUBILE AND MAKEBI ZULU TICKET – A PEOPLE’S MANDATE FOR RESTORATION
Brian Mundubile and Makebi Zulu, offer Zambia a path back to unity, to rights, and to an accountable government with the following minimum programme for the restoration of the Republic:
1) A comprehensive, people-driven constitutional process to reclaim power from the executive and return it to the people.
2) Restoring Good Governance: This will restore transparency, accountability, and meritocracy in public service, making it non-partisan and efficient.
3) Working towards National Unity: Through a truth and reconciliation process, this will aim at confronting past hurts, healing our wounds, and uniting us as a nation.
4) Restoring Meritocracy in Public Service: By ensuring that appointments are based on merit, not on patronage, regionalism or party affiliation.
5) Ensuring Economic Ownership: By empowering Zambians to own and control their own nation’s wealth, creating a prosperous and equitable society. Encouraging the growth of a vibrant middle class by tilting the economic balance of power towards Zambians, increasing the ease of doing business, reducing the hurdles that have worked against them.
6) Achieving devolution of power: Power will be devolved out of the centralized and personalized office of the president to ensure that going forward the executive, in particular the Republican President, no longer holds the country hostage. This will be done by giving the power to local communities, and appropriate independent national and local institutions.
This calls for a fundamental overhaul of the governance and economic system. We can no longer entertain the high-jacking
CONCLUSION:
The August 2026 election is not just about changing a party and a President in power. It is about saving our democracy. We cannot afford to waste another 5 more years of intolerance, division, vengeance, regionalism and impunity. We have a real opportunity at setting a real development agenda that benefits all Zambians.
12 August 2026
Do these so called opposition misleaders think about what they document? When you fight the people’s choice, you are actually fighting the people who put him there.
The defeat that HH inflicted on PF in 2021 was a RESOUNDING 2.8 million against less a million. PF have lost ground in Luapula by losing to UPND in parliamentary by elections. Luapula is the province they registered the highest percentage in 2021. How THEN is the current government a threat to democracy???
Instead of heaping malice and bitterness on one man to remove him, the opposition should focus on providing alternative ideas that will better the lives of citizens. HH is not the problem. The lack of executable ideas to better or improve on the current UPND policies is the problem. Muli fikopo.
Let’s stop this outdated malicious mindset of an agenda that does not offer solutions. Okey, let us imagine that the current opposition midleaders removed HH. Which policies and ideas are they implementing? They will just go on a looting frenzy and empty the national treasury and move on from there and wipe out the national reserves that have been accumulated by the one they want to remove. Very ungrateful and dangerous gang of thieves.
Be reminded that the only creature that goes back to eat what it vomited is a dog. Zambians have NEVER put back in power a political party they kicked out, not even our founding father KK (MHRIP) and the mighty UNIP.
Come back to this comment in the 3rd week of August 2026 and prove me wrong.
Mundubile is only interested in the Zambian presidency so that he can abuse the position to stay out of jail. He was given a warning and caution last year by ACC for delivering air instead of fulfilling road contracts. 1.5 BILLION kwacha worth of road contracts. If Mundubile has any morality, he would first sort out that allegation before seeking public office. That he is seeking public office with criminality hanging over his head simply means he was continue in the same criminality if placed in office.