Don’t say ‘tawina kudala’, HH warns supporters.

Don’t Count Victory Before It’s Earned, HH Tells UPND Supporters

President Hakainde Hichilema had a clear message for UPND supporters at yesterday’s manifesto launch: put the champagne away.

With the August 13 vote still weeks away and political competition heating up across the country, Mr Hichilema urged party members to resist the temptation of assuming the race is already run. Confidence, he told them, is no substitute for hard work.

He was particularly pointed about one phrase he wants removed from the party’s vocabulary: “tawina kudala,” meaning “we have already won.”

“Let’s sell the ticket, protect your vote. Don’t say tawina kudala. Don’t use that language, it’s not required,” he said.

It was the kind of message a coach delivers at half-time when the score is in his team’s favour but the job is far from done. Elections, the President reminded supporters, are decided by turnout and organisation, not by how confident you feel in the weeks beforehand.

Rather than spending energy on premature celebration, he called on every party member to treat themselves as part of the campaign machinery, going door to door, explaining the manifesto, engaging communities and making sure supporters actually show up on polling day.

“Every vote matters. From today, Bally, HH, is appointing you as campaign managers. Campaign for Team Zambia,” he said.

He also made an appeal that spoke to a familiar pattern in Zambian elections: voters splitting their support by backing the presidential candidate while ignoring the parliamentary race. Mr Hichilema pushed back on that thinking directly.

“I hear people say, ‘I will vote for the President, not the Member of Parliament’. But the President can’t work alone. Don’t withdraw your vote. Look at the bigger picture,” he said.

His point was straightforward: government programmes do not implement themselves, and the work of national development requires elected leaders at every level pulling in the same direction.

The manifesto launch itself gave the ruling party a platform to look both backward and forward, defending what it has done while laying out what it hopes to do next. On the record side, Mr Hichilema pointed to three areas he believes tell the story of UPND’s first term.

The first was debt restructuring. Zambia defaulted on its external debt in 2020, and getting the country out of that position was widely described as one of the most complex diplomatic and financial exercises the administration faced. Mr Hichilema was blunt about what was achieved.

“We promised that we will deliver debt restructuring, we have delivered,” he said.

The second was agriculture. Government interventions, he said, have helped push maize production toward five million metric tonnes, which he described as one of the largest harvests in the country’s history and a sign that food security policies are working.

The third was jobs. Mr Hichilema said more than one million positions had been created across the public and private sectors over the past five years, and he presented that figure as evidence that economic reforms were starting to make a real difference in people’s lives.

“We have created over a million jobs in the public and private sectors. The numbers are there,” he said.

Beyond the economy, the President used the occasion to appeal for unity and decency in the campaign period ahead. With political tensions rising in some parts of the country, he called on citizens to reject violence, corruption, hatred and ethnic division.

“Never return to issues of hatred, violence and ethnic division,” he said.

Special Assistant to the President for Policy Compliance Joseph Lungu described the manifesto as a document that captures both where the party has been and where it intends to go, a record of achievement combined with a set of ambitions for the next term.

Caroline Katotobwe, executive director of the Centre for Sustainable Democracy and Governance, commended the President’s approach to leadership and the progress she said the country had recorded across several sectors. She encouraged continued citizen participation in national development.

But for all the achievements cited and targets announced, the tone Mr Hichilema set on the day was one of caution rather than celebration. His message to party members was not to sit back and enjoy a comfortable lead, but to go out and earn the result they want.

Don’t say “tawina kudala”, HH warned supporters as UPND launched its election campaign. Confidence is welcome. Complacency is not.