What, or who, will stop Hichilema? Unless nature takes  him, Zambia should prepare for a life president!- Sishuwa Sishuwa

By Sishuwa Sishuwa

What, or who, will stop Hichilema? Unless nature takes  him, Zambia should prepare for a life president!



Earlier this week, a video clip of an interview featuring Cosmas Chileshe, a member of the ruling United Party for National Development (UPND), went viral after he proposed the removal of term limits so that President Hakainde Hichilema can rule for as long as possible. Appearing on a private national television station, Chileshe argued that the current Constitution, which limits a president to five-year terms in office, is undemocratic:

“The country should remove the term limit of two-five-year terms but keep the five-year cycle of elections so that the people are the ones to decide if they want the President to continue or not. Unlike what Zimbabwe is proposing, which is to extend the 5-year term to 7 years, Zambia should simply remove the term limit. One of the reasons we don’t develop is because we change leadership too much and other countries are laughing at us for that. Why should a President who is working very well for the people be removed simply because he has served 2 terms?”, Chileshe asked.

Many people have condemned Chileshe’s proposal as outrageous and unacceptable, warning that it could lead to a presidency in perpetuity. This condemnation is necessary but not sufficient.  Zambians also need to understand why it is Chileshe who is making such comments. When I was growing up in the village in Western Zambia, I learnt that among dogs, there is one whose role is only to bark at the passer-by or intruder and another that bites. Cosmas is the barking dog; the hot air balloon.

Contrary to what some of his critics have argued,  Chileshe’s call for the elimination of term limits was neither random nor a result of carelessness. It had a specific purpose. In other words, there is “methodical” thinking behind what appears to be an isolated position. Broadly speaking, there are three reasons that explain why Chileshe was carefully chosen as the most suitable individual to kickstart the “no term limits” discussion.

The first is that Chileshe is just an ordinary party member, not an official. Sending him to a major national platform to promote the idea of no term limits creates room for the ruling party to distance itself from his views if this becomes necessary.

The second reason is that Chileshe is an ex-member of the former ruling party, the Patriotic Front (PF), who now serves as part of the UPND presidential media team. This identity matters because it allows the ruling party, if needs be, to claim that the proposal came not from the UPND, but from a former PF member who is not yet familiar with the political culture of his new political home. In the short term, Chileshe’s campaign for no term limits allows him to perform loyalty by showing that he is so much in support of the president that he would rather Hichilema rules forever.

In the long term, Chileshe’s campaign benefits Hichilema. By injecting, in the public mind, the thought that Hichilema must rule without term limits, Chileshe has laid the ground for the entry of more voices on a subject that is likely to dominate political life after the August election: succession politics. The fact that his proposal has received wider public traction is an achievement for him and for his patrons.

Not long ago, Attorney General Mulilo Kabesha said Zambians want constitutional amendments after the election.

mastmediazm.com/2026/03/zambia…

Chileshe is one of the Zambians that Kabesha had in mind and has revealed one of the amendments that are coming. In proposing the idea now, Chileshe is allowing Hichilema to test the public’s reaction. Should there be any public backlash to the proposal, Hichilema can easily distance himself from Chileshe’s views and even discard him.  If, as expected, there is no major public outrage, it won’t be long before the next movement on the issue happens. There is a timetable to this madness, to these things!

The third reason is Chileshe is a Bemba and his ethnic identity matters under Hichilema’s politics. A careful examination of how Hichilema has operated since 2021 shows that when it comes to doing wrong or unpopular things, the president usually fronts Bembas or Easterners from the as the “useful idiots”. Think of Miles Sampa (see the article on the link below, for an example), Robert Chabinga, Levy Ngoma, Andrew Lubusha, Elias Nkandu, and several others who hail from the Chambeshi-Luangwa region – that is the region covering the four provinces that share the Chambeshi and Luangwa rivers: Eastern and the Bemba-speaking provinces of Muchinga, Luapula and Northern.

africanarguments.org/2023/12/zambia…

In avoiding the use of the usual suspects from the Zambezi region – that is parts of Central and the three provinces that share the Zambezi River: Northwestern, Southern and Western – Hichilema is showing that he has learnt lessons from the 2006 experience that followed the death of the party’s founding president Anderson Mazoka. At the time, the Tonga-speaking Hichilema, who was in the private sector but had been a card-carrying member of the UPND, relied on the Zambezi supremacists such as Ackson Sejani, Rex Natala, and Syacheye Madyenkuku to promote his political interests that then rested on the idea that “only a Tonga must replace Mazoka”.  To read further on how succession politics played out in 2006, see the article on the link below.

doi.org/10.1080/000839…\

Although Hichilema succeeded in securing the UPND presidency, the ethnic campaign that marred his election adversely damaged the UPND’s standing and explains why he was to spend over 15 years in opposition before managing to rebuild the party’s appeal beyond Tongas. Nearly two decades later, the president and his party have not forgotten the lesson of 2006 and are this time relying on useful idiots from the Chambeshi-Luangwa region to promote his political interests that rest on the idea that presidential terms should be removed, or that the election of the president should be done by parliament rather than the voters. The latter idea rests on the soon-to-be completed reconfiguration of the National Assembly, thanks to delimitation, that will permanently leave the Zambezi region with even more seats in parliament than the Chambeshi-Luangwa region.

If there is another thing that Hichilema learnt from the 2006 experience, it is that it is not easy to disown members of his own ethnic group. When many people condemned the Zambezi supremacists who were pushing the narrative that “only a Tonga must succeed Mazoka”, Hichilema refused to condemn or distance himself from the supremacists because they were members of his ethnic group. This time around, he can easily disown Chileshe – only if there is public backlash to the proposal of “no term limits” – since he belongs to easily dispensable members of the Chambishi-Luangwa region and was until recently a supporter of the former ruling party whose members the president embraces or discards when convenient.

Hichilema’s failure to disown the foul conduct of Zambezi supremacists has also been demonstrated in his attitude towards the broadly expanded offence of hate speech. When those on the receiving end of what is considered hate speech are individuals who hail from the Chambeshi-Luangwa region, with the perpetrators coming from the Zambezi region, Hichilema has not been bothered, and no one has been arrested and prosecuted. When those on the receiving end of what is considered hate speech are individuals who hail from the Zambezi region, with the perpetrators coming from the Chambeshi-Luangwa region, Hichilema has been quick to act, and many people have been prosecuted. This experience is also true for the offence of seditious practices, with Zambians from the Chambeshi-Luangwa region accounting for nearly all the arrests and prosecutions so far under his presidency.

The point is this: succession politics is on, and Hichilema is preparing his successor, namely, himself. So serious about his bid for life presidency is Hichilema that even those within the ruling party whom he deems as potential stumbling blocks to the realisation of his long-term political interests have been frozen out of their positions in both Cabinet and in the UPND. Among the most high-profile examples here are former Minister of Local Government Gary Nkombo, who is also Mazabuka Central MP, and Elijah Muchima, the Ikeleng’i constituency lawmaker, who until recently was Minister of Health. Both are seen as capable of frustrating Hichilema’s bid for life presidency and will consequently not be readopted for parliamentary election.

The official justification for sidelining them is that they voted against Bill 7, but the real reason is succession politics: Hichilema has long considered Nkombo a major threat to his bid for absolute power, which explains why he sacked him from cabinet long before the vote on the Bill. This is the unfolding wider context within which Chileshe’s views, and his role, should be understood. Chileshe is, figuratively speaking, John the Baptist who is out to prepare the ground for the political messiah! As I wrote in the article below on 7 April, Hichilema is out to secure the dominance of the state by the Zambezi region for a very long, long time:

x.com/ssishuwa/statu…

As I write this, I have just read that Hichilema has appointed and promoted, at one go, 40 judges to various superior courts! 40 judges! This is, from all points of view, an abuse of presidential power that is aimed at changing the complexion of the judiciary. Hichilema knows that he will get away with his move, just as he got away with it when he previously appointed 20 new judges at once. This time, he decided to double the number.

A close examination of the list of the newly appointed and promoted judges is even more damming and shows the intensifying implementation of what appears to be his ethnic-regional vision for the capture of the State.  When Hichilema last appointed the 20 judges, 13 of them came from the Zambezi region. This time, 17 of the 26 newly appointed High Court judges are from the Zambezi region. Four out of seven Court of Appeal judges are from the Zambezi region. Two of the three new judges to the Constitutional Court are from the Zambezi.

One of Hichilema’s personal lawyers, an ex-captain in the Zambia Air Force named Butler Sitali, also from the Zambezi region, has been airlifted from the private sector directly to the Supreme Court, overlooking experienced and serving judges of the superior courts. This suggests that Hichilema may be preparing his personal lawyer to take over as either Chief Justice when the incumbent Mumba Malila retires in four years’ time or as Deputy Chief Justice, should the president decide to promote the current holder of the post, another of Hichilema’s former lawyers, be replace Malila.

Hichilema has further promoted executive-friendly judges who have been messing up things, especially for the opposition, in the High Court to the Court of Appeal and the Constitutional Court. He has also promoted several rogue magistrates, who have been convicting members of the opposition on slight and politically motivated charges, to the High Court. Under Hichilema, politically sensitive cases in which he has an interest have always been allocated to only judges from the Zambezi region, regardless of the level of the court. In promoting magistrates and judges who are from the region and generally seen as pro-executive, the president has not only packed the courts at all levels but also sent a message to other magistrates and judges that it is a crime to be professional; what secures one’s promotion is doing the bidding of the regime, not integrity, competence, fairness, or quality judgements.

And coming four weeks before the dissolution of parliament, both the timing and purpose of these judicial appointments and promotions are not accidental. The timing is strategic for Hichilema because apart from having a compromised parliament, he knows that MPs will not have enough time to thoroughly scrutinise his 40+ appointees before the House stands dissolved on 13 May. As a result, the nominees are all likely going to be easily ratified. Already, MPs are too worried about their own adoptions and survival in the coming elections to care much about these new judges and commissioners.

In terms of purpose, Hichilema is preparing for the forthcoming general election in August when courts will play a central role in determining who gets to stand against him and the winner.  Before ethe election, courts will have a final say during nominations. Last year, Hichilema changed the constitutional rules governing nominations to make it easier to exclude rival candidates through court-engineered disqualification of duly nominated candidates. Before the amendment, Zambia’s constitution stated that:

“Where … a court disqualifies a candidate for corruption or malpractice, after the close of nominations and before the election date, the Electoral Commission shall cancel the election and require the filing of fresh nominations by eligible candidates and elections shall be held within thirty days of the filing of the fresh nominations.”

Hichilema deleted this clause and replaced it with the following:

“Where a candidate has been disqualified by a court, after close of nominations, the candidate shall not be eligible to contest the elections, and the election shall proceed to be held on the date prescribed for holding the election.”

The consequence of this change is twofold.

The first is that unlike in the past where validly nominated candidates could only be disqualified for reasons of either corruption or malpractice, judges now have been given the sole and unregulated discretion to determine the grounds for disqualifying any candidate from running for public office. Given the many pro-executive judges now on the bench, any strong opposition candidate can easily be disqualified for any reason the judge deems fit, making it possible for Hichilema to run unopposed or with weaker candidates.

The second is that once disqualified, the affected political party will not be given an opportunity to present an alternative candidate for election, as the poll will go ahead.  To illustrate: if the opposition were to find and nominate a strong unity presidential candidate, the Hichilema-appointed judges on the ConCourt may disqualify such a candidate for whatever reason (s) they can dream of, and Hichilema will be re-elected unopposed or after defeating relatively weaker candidates.

Courts will also play an important role after the election.  For instance, of the 11 judges on the Constitutional Court, seven have been appointed by Hichilema since 2023 while one has been promoted by him. The president, who fired three of the ConCourt’s judges who had been appointed by his predecessor and previously ruled against him, has now totally reconstituted the very court that will hear any presidential election petition.  Of the 11, six are from the Zambezi region, and five of them are Hichilema’s appointees. This is the reconstituted Constitutional Court that will hear any petition against him.

Similarly, the High Court will hear all parliamentary election petitions. With 26 new High Court judges, alongside the crop that he had appointed earlier, Hichilema has reconstituted the High Court in his party’s image. Although these appointments are subject to parliamentary ratification, Hichilema knows that all his nominees will be approved because of the supine character of the current National Assembly. After all, most MPs in parliament have sold out to the executive, as they showed during the vote on the deplorable Bill 7.

To strengthen his hold on the Electoral Commission of Zambia, Hichilema also announced appointments to the body. First, the president appointed former UPND aspiring candidate for Luanshya constituency, Zevyanji Sinkala, as a commissioner. Second, he promoted another commissioner from the Zambezi region to become the deputy chairperson. This means four of the five commissioners on the electoral management body are from the Zambezi region, including the chairperson and deputy chairperson. The only exception is a card-carrying member of the ruling party who has been redeployed to further secure the UPND’s interests on the electoral commission. If a sitting president can both rig an election and control the Constitutional Court, it is hard to see how he or she can ever be voted out of office.

In recent days, Hichilema, perhaps intent on hoodwinking international actors, has been going round claiming that Zambia will hold free, fair, and credible elections. Based on his actions so far, the forthcoming elections are likely to be anything but free, fair, and credible. Instead of convincing voters on why he deserves another term, Hichilema has been very deliberate and methodical in the way he has dismantled alternative sources of power. Over the course of the last five years, the president has employed several legal mechanisms to enhance executive power and undermine the integrity of the forthcoming poll.  In addition to the above appointment of judges using a nontransparent criterion, Hichilema has used:

·  the registrar of societies to prevent the registration of opposition parties deemed as likely threats to his re-election, with John Sangwa’s party serving as the latest victim;

·  the police to block all public meetings called by the opposition outside by-elections even as he himself continues to hold rallies freely;

·  the courts and Robert Chabinga to prolong divisions in the main opposition party and stifle the other parties;

·  the much changed and compromised electoral commission to disadvantage his main rivals; and

·  the strategy of co-optation to appoint critical voices to public bodies and, in the process, weaken civil society. I have examined many of these points in this Mail & Guardian article, published in September last year: mg.co.za/thought-leader…

Having sapped any semblance of remaining professionalism in formal institutions such as the judiciary, electoral commission, and the police, Hichilema feels emboldened. Herein lies the real danger. Once public trust in these and other institutions is totally eroded, opposition to his leadership may find expression in undemocratic means or informal outlets.

Already, growing levels of frustration with the government’s failure to address the escalating cost-of-living crisis have left many areas, especially in towns and cities, teetering on the brink of social unrest. All that it may take to torch this simmering discontent – and make what happened in Tanzania look like a picnic – is a disputed election. Or even the electoral exclusion of an opposition leader that many people see as the only real alternative. Not even Hichilema may survive the potential consequences of what he is, in effect, brewing.

Who, or what, will stop Hichilema? For there seems to be an increasing probability that if he is not stopped, and unless nature takes him, Zambians will do well to start preparing for a wamuyaya (life time) president. Should he manage to steal the next election and then move to successfully either remove term limits or abolish the presidential vote, Hichilema, who is only 63, may even attempt to bend nature to his will for at least 20 years.