Too many small men being lied to that they can win August elections – Political analyst
POLITICAL analyst Muhabi Lungu has warned that Zambia’s opposition landscape is being sabotaged by what he described as “small men of envy and ambition” who are being misled by their own supporters into believing they can single-handedly win the August general elections.
Speaking on Diamond TV last night, Lungu said Zambia’s biggest political problem is not the ruling party but opposition leaders who are convinced they can win elections alone despite lacking national appeal.
Lungu said many individuals with small or big political organisations are constantly being assured by their followers that they do not need alliances, wrongly believing that the people alone constitute an opposition force.
“The thing that creates problems in this country is that we have too many small men who are being lied to naturally. They are being told ‘you alone can win’. Then they say ‘we don’t need to come together’ because the opposition is not the opposition, it’s the people,” Lungu said.
He dismissed that thinking as a fallacy, arguing that voters do not wake up on their own to vote for a non-existent candidate.
“People must be led. People don’t go out by themselves to go vote for a fictitious person on the ballot. There has to be a person on the ballot that a critical mass of Zambians are prepared to queue for from five or six in the morning,” he said.
The analyst also took a swipe at what he termed political immaturity among some leaders who cry foul when internal elections do not go their way.
He said some politicians pretend to support colleagues during internal processes, only to reject outcomes once they lose, accusing others of cheating and refusing to cooperate with party administrative processes.
“Immediately you don’t win, you start saying the elections were not good. You refuse to help change office bearers at the Registrar of Societies because it’s not you who won. That shows the level of immaturity we have,” Lungu said.
He warned that Zambia cannot afford such behaviour, stressing that politics should not revolve around individual egos and personal ambition.
“This thing cannot be about Muhabi Lungu, or this one, or that one. It cannot be about names. We, as Zambian leadership, should stop being manipulators and being too preoccupied with our own self-importance and start looking at the bigger picture,” he said.
By George Musonda
Kalemba January 19, 2026
Well, let’em try it out and prove themselves
Nothing wrong with being a lonely ranger. After all that is what democracy is about – an open field not heterogeneous alliances.
Presenting a false united front will not be good for the country. Power struggles would spill into the government and paralyse it.
PF didnot need an alliance to win the 2011 elections, neither did UPND need one to win the 2021 elections.
Are you talking of the CF President Mr.Harry Kalaba or Mr.Fred Membe ? Well ,you are factual person because the chawama by election should not excite the opposition political parties ! They should also consider the by elections which have been held and count how many the Ruling UPND have scooped as compared to those the opposition have won.The general elections will be won not by assumptions but reality. Let all the political parties be aware of the situation on the ground especially that the UPND have failed the farmers.