Chawama Is Not The Battle, It is The Warning

Chawama Is Not The Battle, It is The Warning

By Brian Matambo | Lusaka, Zambia

People of Chawama Constituency, and Zambians across the country, this is a moment that calls for sober thought, not emotions. What is unfolding in Chawama must be read alongside what is happening nationally, because none of this exists in isolation.

The opposition today, particularly the Patriotic Front, is under calculated attack. This is not conjecture. It is visible in the pattern – endless litigation, selective application of procedure, arrests that go nowhere, court cases that exhaust rather than resolve, administrative decisions that appear timed to weaken, demoralise, and fragment. The objective is not justice. It is attrition.

And this is where we must be honest with ourselves. No opposition, however principled, can survive sustained pressure without discipline and order. It will take Zambians themselves to call the opposition to order, to demand unity, seriousness, and purpose. Change will not arrive by sympathy alone. The removal of UPND in August 2026 will not be delivered by court rulings or by election tallies. It will be delivered by citizens who refuse to be distracted and insist on an opposition worthy of governing.

Chawama must also be understood against a backdrop of deep contradiction at the centre of power. Just last week, Hakainde Hichilema publicly referred to some unverified stories, talking about how travellers from Choma were allegedly beaten at Intercity Bus Terminus before 2021. That history was presented as evidence of the evils of caderism under the PF, the very justification upon which the UPND rode into office.

Today, however, those same caders are being embraced. Welcomed. Absorbed. Rewarded with vehicles and money. The question that begs to be answer is, “How does a movement that claimed moral authority by condemning cadre violence now rehabilitate the very practices it denounced. How does one remove a government on the basis of caderism, only to recreate it under a different banner”.

This is not evolution. It is confusion.

And history has a cruel habit. When power loses moral clarity, it often mistakes momentum for permanence. When leaders grow convinced that process can be bent indefinitely, they begin to believe their own invincibility, albeit it fake and flimsy. There is an old truth that applies here without ornament. When those destined for political ruin are indulged, it is often pride that blinds them first. Or when the gods wish to destroy a man, they first confuse him.

We must not allow a win or a loss in Chawama to distort our focus. Chawama is not the destination. It is a signal. Whatever happens there should be understood in the wider context of a government increasingly comfortable with contradiction, and an opposition under pressure to either mature or disappear.

The pain remains real. A former president, Dr Edgar Chagwa Lungu, still unburied. A family whose grief has been prolonged through the courts. A party worn down by what many experience as cooked-up litigation and questionable process. That pain must not ferment into despair. It must harden into resolve.

Resolve to organise. Resolve to unify. Resolve to correct the opposition where it falters. Resolve to stay the course to August 2026.

Chawama does not change the direction. It clarifies the terrain. Those watching closely will understand that moments like this are not designed to end movements, but to test whether a nation is paying attention.