There may be General Elections in 2026; but they will be sham, fake elections- Azwell Banda

There may be General Elections in 2026; but they will be sham, fake elections

By Azwell Banda,

Mr Hakainde Hichilema is completely out of his depth: he is terrorised by the ever-looming nightmare of the August 2026 General Elections in which, all things being equal, he and his UPND political choir are going to be humiliatingly booted out of office.

And then all hell will break loose for him and his UPND as all the unconstitutional, criminal, illegal, corrupt, undemocratic, authoritarian and dictatorial usurpation and abuse of state power for himself and his foreign masters will be uncovered and will haunt him and his political choir for the rest of their lives. Every second that passes brings the hour of reckoning closer, for Hakainde Hichilema and his dictatorial and thoroughly out of tune political choir. Hichilema and all his friends are now sweating over how to sustain themselves in government, and prevent the inevitable: their eventual exposure as a bunch of thoroughly corrupt, lying incompetents and naked puppets of foreign economic and political powers. Nothing terrorises Hakainde Hichilema more than his acute memories of the five elections he lost and he could not be saved, even by the courts. He is fully aware that it took the UPND more than 23 costly and long years in the opposition before they could form government.  

Make no mistake about this: Hakainde Hichilema and his thoroughly unpatriotic UPND gang have no illusions that they can win in a violence-free, free, fair and transparent General Election. They know very well that apart from their hard core regional political bases which are incapable of giving them the ballot numbers required to secure a second term, they are now no longer capable of fooling voters who swung the elections in their favour in August 2021. Barely four years in government, Hakainde Hichilema has confirmed beyond any reasonable doubt, and why, he did not win the August 2021 elections; Edgar Chagwa Lungu of the PF lost those elections: the majority of Zambian voters instinctively saw through Hakainde Hichilema’s heart and did not see a compassionate, caring, humane and selfless individual who could take care of the needs of all Zambians! And they were right!

You do not need to be a rocket scientist to imagine what thoughts swell Hakainde Hichilema’s head these days, as August 2026 fast approaches. Nor do you need to be a genius to imagine what content features prominently in the conversations in the inner circles of the UPND government: how to stay in government beyond 2026! The seemingly unplanned, chaotic and off the cuff revelation by Hakainde Hichilema during his speech as he was opening parliament on the 13th of September last week that lacunae exist in the Zambian Constitution which could be exploited to delay elections for eight to nine years is a stark reminder to all Zambians, especially those in the opposition, that Hakainde Hichilema and the UPND government are now fully focused on how to secure their stay in government long beyond August 2026.

It is true that Zambians of all tribes and good will, with sane unpolluted minds by the psychosis of praise singing both in the UPND and the opposition, must understand Hichilema’s threat that elections may not take place for 8 or 9 years after August 2026 as a gamble to try and build a willing coalition for him to get what he wants done to the Constitution, if he is to hold General Elections in 2026 which could barely be tolerable, politically, by his Western backers who are now quite clear he is not the smart puppet they actually need – his inability to conceal his application of the Patriotic Front toolkit of dictatorial tricks is extremely embarrassing to them, and they are already seeing the typical signs of betrayal as Hichilema now appears to suddenly warm up to both China and Russia!

It is wrong, irrational, dangerous and thoroughly unwise to underplay and ignore the significance of the threat to the General Elections in August 2026 Hakainde has signalled: he has given Zambians only one alternative: allow Hakainde to swiftly, efficiently, using a least cost route to negotiate the provisions he seeks to insert in the Constitution to enable him secure his stay in government post August 2026, through a sham General Election which will look “credible”, especially to his Western backers. There is too much at stake for Hichilema and the West to trust Zambian voters, in a violence free, free, fair, and transparent General Election, to secure their interests. Hakainde suddenly admires the Chinese political system, but without its Communism!

In the past three years Hakainde Hichilema has demonstrated how desperate he is to secure his stay in government much longer than August 2026. He has banned mass political events both by the opposition and his critics. He has sponsored a failed attempt to destroy the Patriotic Front, his worst nightmare. He has crippled the Patriotic Front and other opposition leaders by keeping them in police cells and or courts, under all kinds of charges. He has destroyed the internal financial base of the Patriotic Front by exploiting the laws dealing with property suspected to be proceeds of crimes and by creating special courts for this purpose for the Patriotic Front. He has loaded the Electoral Commission of Zambia with his party cadres. He has beefed up the judiciary with new appointments of judges.

We all know all this and much more, about how Hakainde Hichilema and his UPND political choir have, in under three years shown their true colours as liars, hypocrites, corrupt, constitutional vandals, undemocratic, authoritarian and quite frankly, dictators. As Zambian bodies pile up in mortuaries without electricity, Hakainde Hichilema and his friends are more worried about how to cross the hurdle of General Elections in August 2026. Millions of Zambians need food, medicines, water, transport, fuels, electricity, rent and so on. Hakainde and his UPND friends are now singularly worried about the General Elections in 2026 and how to wire the elections in order to secure some legitimacy, for their prolonged stay in government.

A whole Zambian generation of young Zambians have their education wasted because of cholera, hunger, water challenges and electricity crises – all which Hakainde Hichilema pretended he had easy ready-made solutions for when he was in the opposition. In government, he is asking Zambians who have no money to dig water boreholes, buy maize for mealie meal, buy solar panels and other sources of electricity, and both him and his Minister of Finance have basically suggested Zambians in urban areas had better trek back to their impoverished villages as life is cheaper out there!

Meanwhile, Zambians who care to know understand that Hakainde and his friends in the UPND government are wiring the economy for themselves and their foreign friends. The vast illegal export of money out of Zambia is also proof of such operations. There will be no genuine elections, if they occur at all, in August 2026. Hakainde Hichilema, the UPND government, the West and the opposition have already given us a dress rehearsal of how, and the extent of election rigging which may occur, can be managed in the Kwacha and Kabushi by-elections.

To jog our minds, below is how Transparency International Zambia (TI-Z) perfectly summarised what happened in the Kabushi and Kwacha by-elections, in their 30th October 2022 statement on the Kwacha and Kabushi by-election (it is best to quote the statement almost in full):

“… the key players in these by-elections elevated their personal and group interests far beyond the larger public interest and public good, thereby driving the country to a near constitutional crisis. Consequently, there was widespread voter apathy, with only 23% and a paltry 14% of the registered voters turning out to vote in Kabushi and Kwacha, respectively. TI-Z wishes to raise four key issues arising from the events that characterised these by-elections:

It is a well-known fact that the promise to restore the rule of law was one of the significant factors that propelled the United Party for National Development (UPND) to their convincing electoral victory in the 2021 general elections, following their over 20 years as an opposition political party. During their time in opposition, the UPND was a regular victim of political maneuvers aimed at hindering their free participation in different aspects of the country’s democratic process, including elections. Furthermore, during the lead-up to the 2021 general elections, the UPND was treated to unfair campaign tactics such as the dominance of the then incumbent republican President during the campaign period, which was designed to crowd-out the opposition in selected constituencies under the guise of security or COVID concerns. TI-Z therefore finds it grossly unfortunate and deeply disturbing that during the by-elections in Kwacha and Kabushi, the UPND government and party seemingly adopted these same unfair practices in a bid to win the by-elections. The many maneuvers that we witnessed, including through the judicial process, gave the worrying impression that the UPND as the party in government will stop at nothing to ensure that they advance their political interests. Given tha (sic) we witnessed similar machinations prior to August 2021, it is worrying that a party that was given a strong mandate to govern on the basis of being different is adopting the same tactics that the Zambian citizenry widely rejected. TI-Z therefore calls on the UPND party an administration to refrain from such backward maneuvers and live up the high expectations tha (sic) the Zambian people have in them. The behaviour of the UPND party in the Kabushi an Kwacha fiasco does not inspire confidence, and we challenge them to change this narrative.

There can be no doubt that the ECZ failed to meet the aspirations of the Zambian people with respect to the manner in which it handled the two by-elections. In aspiring to uphold the value of impartiality, the ECZ should not only act but also be seen to act in a non-partisan manner and exhibit the highest levels of impartiality and professionalism. Unfortunately, the events surrounding the two by-elections provide a basis to question the impartiality and autonomy of the Commission. Ultimately, the decisions taken by the ECZ in proceeding with the byelections, despite a court order staying the elections being in effect, served to disadvantage other players, in particular the Patriotic Front (PF). The fact that the ECZ’s decisions appeared to always be in line with the desires of the ruling party is a stain on the conscious of the Commission, and will do nothing to change the public perception that the Commission is only independent on paper but not in practice. TI-Z therefore calls on the ECZ to always exhibit the highest degree of professionalism in delivering their constitutionally-given mandate. In the same vein, we are concerned with the leadership gap currently existing at the Commission. The absence of a substantive Chief Executive Officer and Chairperson effectively means that both the management and oversight functions at the Commission are grossly impaired.

In the lead-up to the two by-elections, all the political parties, including the PF were aware of the potential constitutional crisis that could arise by nominating candidates who previously lost the same seats through judicial processes. While respecting the rights of all political parties to select any candidate of their choice to stand on their ticket, it was grossly irresponsible of the PF to elevate this right far and above the peace and credibility of our electoral process. Fielding candidates who are subjects of judicial processes arising from constitutional lacunae, meant that the PF shot themselves in the foot, and this ultimately led to them not taking part in the by-elections. As a party that was in government not long ago, the PF should have anticipated the likely outcome of their decision and therefore could have taken strategic action to prevent this outcome.

We want also to address the role the Judiciary played or did not play in the matters concerning the two by-elections. We noted with great disappointment that, in more than one way our courts failed the people of Zambia by failing, in our view, to clearly, decisively, definitively, resolutely and authoritatively interpret the pieces of law brought before them by different parties beyond doubt. Often, whenever our courts interpreted the law, the public remained with more questions and labored to interpret the interpretations of our courts. We go to the courts to seek finality, however we feel the court’s rulings, in some instances, were vague and ambiguous. We do not want our judiciary to be looked upon as being not independent, partial and incompetent. We equally noted that there appeared to be dissonance among the different courts especially the High Court, the Court of Appeal and the Constitutional Court as though they were not falling under one judiciary; their judgments did not always seem to meet some standard of convergence, and this was a matter of grave concern for us and other stakeholders. In light of all this, TI-Z calls upon all stakeholders in the electoral process to reflect on these two by-elections in order to learn vital lessons, and to take actions aimed at preventing such an outcome in future. We also call on the UPND administration to provide a clear roadmap for the constitutional review process, which process is important to address the many constitutional lacunae, which have the potential to plunge the country into a constitutional crisis. What happened in Kabushi and Kwacha is a stain on our democracy, and it is our hope that measures will be put in place to avoid a recurrence in future.”

Should the undemocratic and illegal principles and more in this reckless tested method be deployed by the UPND during the General Elections in August 2026, with a Zambia divided almost neatly in two between the South West and the North East by our lying, hypocritical, corrupt, tribalist politicians both in the UPND and the PF, civil war awaits us, after August 2026! What is to be done, to avoid this perilous route? That is the question we Zambians must answer, now, not tomorrow!



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