By Chibesa Kalandwe II BA (UNZA), MSc (Arizona)
Forget about President Chiluba. President Lungu is the ultimate political tactician. He is calculative and moves with stealth. If you thought FTJ was a cunning grand master, then wait for August as President Lungu makes his move on the chessboard.
In the next 85 days, President Lungu will only hand over power to President Lungu. Just 7 hours into announcing the Presidential vote, HH’s ponds would have dried up in the South, West, North-West and parts of Central Province.
For someone who is one of the largest suppliers of meat in Zambia, HH surely has no pound of flesh of his own to win this election. Because where will he get the numerical strength to offset and overturn a highly possible PF win?
PF have no capacity to rig this election, they will win on pure electioneering. Winning an election in Africa has never been about economic graphs or exchange rates, no stupid, it has ever been about galvanizing the grass root. HH goes into this election with nothing of that sort.
On the Copperbelt, the battle is between PF candidates and PF Independents, not the UPND. That alone gives you the barometer of where the Presidential vote will swing to.
This pattern repeats itself everywhere. PF even has the realistic chance of winning some seats in the North West than UPND’s hopes on the Copperbelt.
In Lusaka, Mandevu’s bulk vote alone is equivalent to Mbabala, Bweengwa and Chikankata combined. PF knew this outcome and presented a candidate with Mandevu in his palms. The UPND candidate is unknown and will not even win in any ward. For an election as crucial as this one, people do not even know who the UPND Secretary General is. So how and where will HH win this election?
‘Genius’ HH gets excited with 45 shares on his Facebook posts and 57 retweets on Twitter and goes to bed convinced he has won an election with 7 million voters, majority of whom will actually vote in traditional PF strongholds. That is how daft those who surround HH seem to.
HH’s running mate seems to be another issue – she comes to the table broke and does not have numbers, even in Kaputa where she hails from, Nalumanago would get Zero at Parliamentary level. So just which rocket science will HH use to win?
