🇿🇲 EDITOR’S NOTE | When Parties Become Personal Estates
Zambian politics has long struggled with a structural weakness that is rarely named plainly: many political parties are not institutions in the full democratic sense. They are personal vehicles, built around a founder’s charisma, sustained by loyalty networks, and held together less by ideology than by proximity to one individual.
When that individual exits the stage, the party often enters a succession crisis, not because leadership renewal is impossible, but because the organisation was never designed to outlive the founder’s personality.
The Patriotic Front remains the clearest example. When President Michael Sata died in October 2014, the party did not transition smoothly into an institutional order. It fractured into contestation, improvisation, and myth-making. Edgar Chagwa Lungu’s rise was not merely a political process. It was framed as a spiritual inheritance. Songs were composed. Prayers were organised. Prophecies were sponsored. The narrative was carefully constructed that Sata had “anointed” Lungu as his successor.
This framing mattered because it replaced procedure with mysticism, and party rules with emotional legitimacy.
Fast forward. PF lost power in 2021. Edgar Lungu died in 2025. And the same script has returned almost intact. Competing factions within PF and the Tonse Alliance now speak again in the language of succession by blessing rather than succession by constitution. Different figures are presented as the late president’s preferred heir. Kelvin Bwalya Fube. Makebi Zulu. Brian Mundubile. Each name circulates within its own ecosystem of loyalty, each anchored to the same claim: that Lungu “anointed” someone.
From a sober political standpoint, this is less history than packaging.
Neither Sata nor Lungu formally anointed successors in any binding institutional manner. What is being marketed as legacy is often a tactical instrument, deployed to borrow the emotional capital of the dead for present-day power struggles. It is a politics of inheritance without accountability, and of continuity without consent.
The deeper problem is that parties remain tied to personal brands. In PF, aspiring leaders must position themselves as disciples of Sata, custodians of Lungu, or inheritors of an imagined mantle. The party becomes a shrine of memory rather than a platform of policy. Politics becomes biography.
This should worry all serious democrats, not only PF supporters.
Even the ruling UPND, often praised for organisational resilience, must confront the same institutional question. The party outlived its founder, Anderson Mazoka. President Hakainde Hichilema sustained it through fifteen years in opposition and ultimately led it to power. This is no small achievement.
But the question that defines mature political systems is never only survival under one leader. It is whether the party can survive beyond him.
Democracy requires parties that are larger than individuals, with internal rules that are respected, succession plans that are credible, and ideological anchors that do not depend on funeral narratives. Political movements cannot remain estates administered through loyalty and posthumous symbolism.
Zambia cannot build durable democracy on anointment politics. Parties must learn to outlive their founders, not by myth, but by institution.
© The People’s Brief | Editors
A very interesting and insightful observation.
What is very alarming actually is how an unequipped citizenry is asked to skillfully appoint the right qualified and experienced candidate to occupy the seat of a President. which apparently is the highest and most powerful Job in every country.
Our highest percentage of citizens here is in the rural areas , where education unfortunately has not been the major thrust of priorities in many administration for decades. This administration is an exception and should be highly commended.
Basically we are among the nations who give the responsibility of picking the most qualified person to manage our resources and developmental agenda to least the qualified citizens. I do understand an NRC is a very important piece of document. However, I think adding real knowledge on governance issues and how to identify good leadership is profoundly more important.
What we have been doing is comparable to going the kindergarten class and giving them the responsibility of selecting a managing director for an institution for example like ZESCO. This is way beyond these kids skill set. Amusingly , some selected MD would feel quite proud of the opportunity.
As crude as that sounds we have been doing this type of thing for years. Just see some of the results. Not very impressive. 60 years and counting.
For a moment, just imagine the manipulation and under hand methods that will be used by the candidates to entice these small innocent kids to pick them. How else will these kids choose other than being enticed with goodies. Surely they can’t know what questions to ask so as to ascertain the right skill set.
Similarly have you noticed that the politicians do much of the talking instead of us asking them what they actually know about management and leading a country.
This is strange especially that they are the ones having the interview. No worries, most of them have no correct answers so they have developed the art of making more noise with loud carder music and much visual displays to make us forget the interview on what their real skill sets really are. Pity.
It is the same with voters , how will a person who is incapable of properly assessing the right candidate, ever manage to choose the best fit. Is it by emotion or feeling.
To top it off. This is the highest office in the land. Something is terribly wrong with the satisfaction of being picked by such an unqualified grouping.
Unless of course the minority are the rightful ones to make the decisions for the majority.
For clarity, our system of election allows for example;
Out of a total population of say 20 million to only have 5 million Registered voters. These will determine the destiny of the other 15 million people. This means 25% of the people in a country will represent the 75% of the population to decide who qualifies to rule us with professionalism and an impeccable character of integrity.
Obviously, something is wrong with this picture and much work is needed to turn the numbers around so that the 75% begin the make decisions on behalf on the 25%. The risk here is manageable.
To Make matters worse if 75% of a population are uneducated and poor . It is likely they are also uninformed on technical matters of governance. it therefore means the 25% in the registered voters of 5 million will not be able to carry the day as the 75% can be easily manipulated by the more aggressively inclined persuaders. Same as the kindergarten class.
That is the main reason why money is key during elections world wide. Even the developed countries don’t escape this vice. To take care of the kindergarten class. Why, because the other 25% is more informed they just need to carefully listen to candidates inorder to decide based on experience and knowledge of the candidate.
Food for thought, How do we end this vicious cycle?
It is not wise to rely on fate or good luck in picking the right candidate. A more scientific and moral approach is definitely possible. Can those who have mastered the art of governance issues navigate us through this territory. Please!!