By Dr Mwelwa
Excitement is spreading among a few uninformed PF members who mistake courtroom dates for political victory, celebrating headlines without understanding Zambia’s power calculus, forgetting that judgments alone decide outcomes in a system where attrition matters.
History offers a sobering lesson: PF perfected the art of keeping MMD trapped in courtrooms, exhausting its leadership, draining momentum, and delaying recovery until power slipped quietly away, proving litigation can be a political weapon.
That episode taught one brutal truth: in Zambian politics, it is not always the ruling party that loses power, but the opposition that loses time, coherence, and relevance while celebrating procedural wins mistaken for momentum.
Today’s excitement around the February judgment risks repeating that mistake, mistaking legality for control, and assuming a favorable ruling ends the contest, when in reality it merely opens another chapter in a longer political struggle.
It is politically naive to assume finality here, because if the ruling does not favor Robert Chabinga, an appeal is almost certain, instantly suspending celebration and returning PF to injunctions, uncertainty, and administrative paralysis again.
This pattern is familiar: judgments trigger excitement, appeals restore stalemate, and months evaporate, leaving structures frozen and members confused, while opponents consolidate quietly, benefiting not from brilliance, but from the opposition’s self-inflicted gridlock over time.
PF members must remember how MMD’s internal energy bled away under endless litigation, until elections arrived with an organization tired, divided, and unprepared, showing that court survival does not equal electoral readiness or popular legitimacy.
Those cheering now forget that politics rewards endurance and organization, not momentary validation, and that every appeal delays conventions, confuses authority, weakens fundraising, and erodes trust among ordinary supporters waiting for direction from credible leadership.
Chabinga’s incentives are obvious: an appeal maintains recognition, prolongs leverage, and preserves bargaining power, regardless of party unity, making paralysis rational for individuals even when destructive for the collective opposition project and national democratic prospects.
This is why celebrating judgments without political preparation is dangerous optimism, because law can reset registers, but cannot manufacture trust, discipline, or a shared roadmap unless leaders choose resolution over endless procedural warfare and brinkmanship.
PF did not lose power to MMD; MMD lost power to itself through fragmentation, fatigue, and misread victories, a cautionary mirror now held before PF as history threatens to repeat itself with ruthless predictability again.
If the court restores PF leadership, the window for decisive action will be narrow, demanding restraint, unity, and a swift convention, because delay will invite appeals and return the party to the same immobilizing loop.
Should appeals follow, members must resist despair and recognize the tactic, understanding that legal motion without political movement favors incumbency, while opposition renewal requires courage to break cycles and rebuild authority through consensus and clarity.
Ultimately, wisdom demands sobriety: excitement is understandable, but victory comes from strategy beyond courtrooms, lest February’s judgment become another fleeting high before the familiar descent into stalemate resumes through appeals delays confusion and internal exhaustion.
Just tell us what you are going to do as Tonse to improve peoples lives. Stop wasting our time with irrelevances