By Leemans L. Nyirenda

Reason No. 7: The strength of the opposition revolves around Mr. Lungu, who lacks character. Mr. Lungu may possess some semblance of strategy for the 2026 elections but lacks the character to go all the way to win. He has not learned from his past, and he has so many issues to contend with, too numerous to itemize. The man is a crybaby. Whenever one of his family members faces the law, he cries like a baby. Unlike President HH, who endured 127 days of hard labor in prison on his way to State House, Mr. Lungu looks too weak to spend even one week in prison. He would easily break for missing his Jameson, family, jogging, and his luxurious lifestyle. The obstacles that HH underwent on his way to victory would be too heavy a burden for Mr. Lungu to carry if he were to be subject to just 20 percent of it. Resiliency is not part of his DNA. Even his presidency was won through violence and trickery. He lacks the character to navigate the opposition to victory when the going gets tough.

Reason No. 8: Opposition leading candidate Mr. Lungu is haunted by the past and has blood on his hands. Unfortunately for the opposition, Mr. Edgar Lungu has not apologized, and neither has he shown remorse for the killings of innocent lives after commanding his “troops” to kill innocent souls. Just to mention a few names:

• Chibulo Mapenzi in July 2016 was murdered in cold blood under his command.
• Gravious Mutapa in February 2015 was killed because he was UPND.
• Versper Shimuzhila was smoked to death by Mr. Lungu’s “troops” under his command at UNZA in 2018.
• Lawrence Banda was shot dead on October 6th, 2019, and the killers protected or hidden by his regime,
• Joseph Kaunda and Nsama Nsama were killed simultaneously after the bullets missed President HH.

Instead of standing with those who were mourning for the loss of their loved ones, Mr. Lungu chose to stand by the killers and murderers and sometimes even promoted the trigger nappy cops like Namuswa after shooting Peter Masani at the High Court. Mr. Lungu is never emotionally affected by the sight of someone wailing. He can only pretend to be. Memories are still fresh, and tears will never dry until he shows remorse and apologizes to the families and Zambians at large.

Reason No. 9: Jail time awaits some prominent opposition party leaders. While every suspect is deemed innocent until proven guilty, most of the opposition leaders are suspects and facing criminal charges for corruption and abuse of office. Some of these leaders will be lucky if they made it to the 2026 polling day. They are putting up appearances, but in private conversations, they are expressing their fears of going to jail. Going into an election of that magnitude with serious allegations of corruption and plunder may just work to their detriment. Zambian voters may resent voting for them on account of wasted votes in the event they went to prison and would not serve their interest. In such a scenario, some voters would even stay away.

Reason No. 10: Opposition is demoralized and fatigued. Since 2021, the opposition has continued to lose ground through loss of National Assembly and Council Chamber seats. The loss of parliamentary seats to the ruling party in Kabushi and Kwacha constituencies sent shivers in the opposition camp while most of the vacancies that have fallen in councils for councilors in most parts of the country have been won by the ruling party UPND. Those voters who have continued to vote for the opposition are now fatigued and demoralized. Their most likely choices in 2026 will be either to join them (UPND) and vote HH or stay away from voting as their votes will be seen as a waste of time and effort.

Reason No. 11: Eligibility Mystery for the opposition. Their top contender is embroiled in his eligibility to stand as a presidential candidate in 2026. The matter revolves around the powers of the constitution court. Has this court possessed the power to review its own decisions? If the answer is yes, then Mr. Lungu’s eligibility to stand in 2026 hangs in the balance as it has been challenged in this court, and judgment is being awaited. The challenge of his eligibility is grounded upon the premise that he served two terms and was sworn in twice as a president of the Republic of Zambia and as such he is not eligible to stand. If the ruling be in favor of the petitioner, it goes without saying that the opposition will get into a scramble for presidency, and hell is expected to break loose. The divisions in opposition are inevitable and more likely.

Reason No. 12: The Zambian opposition is just “Chimbwi no plan.” Apart from being armchair critics on everything President HH does, the opposition does not provide any alternative solutions. They use all manner of jargon they learned in school to pour scorn on the president. “HH has failed,” “HH is a dictator,” “HH is a disaster…” Meanwhile, the same HH is delivering graders for feeder roads to all the constituencies in peri-urban and rural constituencies (Graders began to disappear during MMD rule and disappeared completely after PF took over and hence the poor state of roads in Zambia). HH is delivering desks to all schools across the country so that by the end of 2024 no child will be sitting on the floor. Parents are no longer hassling looking for school fees for their children as education is now free. Teachers, Nurses, and other Medical Personnel are back in schools, clinics, and hospitals in big numbers in all constituencies across the country with an average of 230 trained teachers and 96 nurses and other medical personnel per constituency, with these numbers expected to increase by 2026. No one has ever achieved such performance since Dr. Kaunda left the presidency. By 2026, every constituency will have received K145 million for social and economic development and hence indeed HH’s campaign will be issue-based. The opposition leaders’ challenges will emanate from the fact that they will have nowhere to “sonta epo wabomba” as they themselves coined it? The most unfortunate part for them is that they will not and cannot reverse what President HH has done and doing, neither can they stop his gains. Based on the facts that have been highlighted in this article, it can be argued with some force that the opposition has very little chance to carry the day in 2026 unless something extraordinary happens between now and 2026. Relying on current hardships and events to project what will happen in 2026 is in futility. A united opposition cannot, therefore, win against HH in 2026.

The author is a human rights advocate, author, researcher, youth and development partner, and corporate and management consultant. He holds a Master of Business Administration, Bachelor of Laws, and Diploma in Human Resource Management.

Youths are deciding 21st-century elections, as they recently did in Senegal

By Mwansa Chalwe Snr

Zambia’s general elections are due in two and a half years, in 2026. With the New Dawn administration having almost sorted out the debt restructuring and mining issues, as well as sufficiently marketed Zambia as a good destination for foreign direct investment (FDI), they should now laser-focus on local solutions for job creation through innovative initiatives to promote Micro and Small Enterprises (MSEs), in order to create millions of jobs for the youths.

According to the latest empirical evidence, the majority of Zambian businesses are in the MSEs category and are mainly informal, as stated by the Bank of Zambia (BOZ) Survey. In its latest Survey of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMES), the Bank Of Zambia reported that Zambia has 1,553,892 MSMEs, and out of that total, 98.8% (1,535,245) were micro (less than 10 employees), whereas one percent were small, and 0.2 percent medium-sized. Furthermore, the report stated that 95.6% of MSMEs were in the informal sector and presumably youth-owned. It is, therefore, evident from the data that micro-enterprises provide opportunities for formal critical mass job creation for Zambia.

From the political angle, in the 21st century, it has become abundantly clear that it’s the youth that determine elections in almost all countries. It all started with Barack Obama in 2008 in the US. Then, in 2019, in El Salvador, a 37-year-old Nayib Bukele, an independent-minded leftist former mayor of San Salvador (2015-2018), became the youngest politician to be elected president, and broke 40 years of the two-party rule in El Salvador, by winning in the first round by 53%, because of the Youth Vote. And recently in Senegal, 44-year-old Bassirou Diomaye Faye won 54% in the first round too. In Kenya, it was the same. It is apparent that politicians can only ignore the Youth vote in their economic strategies at their peril.

Causes of Youth Unemployment

According to this author’s research, there are seven major factors contributing to high youth unemployment in Sub-Saharan African countries, including Zambia. And these are: low economic growth, governments’ facilitation of informality, low entrepreneurship skills, low research and development budgets, deficiencies in the education system which have limited relevance to the requirements of industry resulting in skills mismatch between the education system and the labor market. The lack of experience by youth and lack of access to information, communication, and technology facilities and the internet. Let us highlight four of the above causes in more detail.

The first major cause of youth unemployment in Zambia is the low economic growth rate, which is insufficient to generate enough jobs. The Zambian economy grew by 4.6% in 2021, 4.7% in 2022, and 4.3% in 2023. It is forecast to grow by 4.7% in 2024 by the government but IMF recently forecast growth at 2.3%. These rates are insufficient for the country to develop, create jobs, and reduce poverty. And the IMF agrees with this assertion.

“Despite its abundant resources, growth has been insufficient to lift its young and growing population from poverty. More than 60 percent of Zambia’s population lives below the international poverty line compared to 35% across the Sub-Saharan Countries,” IMF said in a statement reviewing the Zambian economy.

It should be noted that in Zambia’s case, even if the economic growth rates were to be as high as 7%, based on past experience in the mid-2000s, such growth rates would not translate into substantial job creation. This is so because Zambia’s growth rates are mainly driven by mining activities, where raw materials are exported with little value addition. Furthermore, the mechanization of most of the tasks that were previously done by human beings means that very few jobs are created. In addition, the low level of subcontracting of Zambian businesses, especially by Chinese multinationals and mining companies, means that few indirect jobs are created.

The second major cause of unemployment is the flourishing informal sector in Africa, which makes up 90% of the economy. This author does not consider informal employment as value-adding employment. This is because informality retards development. African governments, including Zambia, have not realized that they are partly enablers of Youth unemployment through their policies which discourage youth entrepreneurs from starting formal businesses. Governments are facilitators of informality through labor policies, tax policies, and excessive regulations. Excessive regulations can make setting up a formal business cumbersome and expensive. Obtaining permits, navigating licensing procedures, and complying with labor laws can be overwhelming for aspiring entrepreneurs, especially young people.

In addition, stringent tax policies can make formalization unattractive. In a nutshell, these complexities and costs can discourage young people with entrepreneurial potential from starting formal microenterprises. And this hinders innovation and job creation in the formal sector, and reduces the number of formal jobs available.

Importance of Research and Development

When one looks around the world, countries that have succeeded in creating jobs are those that have been innovative. And innovation does not just happen, it must be facilitated. Zambia and other African countries spend very little on Applied research and development, and as a result, they are unable to create jobs through innovation. Applied research can help develop new technologies and solutions suited to Zambia’s specific needs.

Without enough funding, these innovations are less likely to happen. Applied research can identify new business opportunities in Zambia. This could be in areas like agriculture, renewable energy, or ICT. With limited research, these opportunities go unnoticed, hindering the creation of new businesses that could employ young people.

The lack of entrepreneurship skills is another major contributor to youth unemployment in Africa. According to the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development research, two out of five or 40% of youths want to start a business, but they do not know how to go about it.

What is the way forward?

The authorities need to realize that to solve a problem, the size of the solution must fit the size of the problem. To solve the Youth unemployment problem, there is a need to press the reset button, and a proper comprehensive diagnosis done before crafting solutions.

The detailed diagnosis should entail taking a systematic approach. First, there should be the identification of the different causes of Youth unemployment, secondly, it’s crucial that there is a recognition of the fact that the Youth demographic is heterogeneous and different demographics which require different solutions. Thirdly, there has to be categorization of solutions in the different timelines of short term, medium term, and long term, and thereafter proper sequencing of interventions should be done.

And finally, a comprehensive road map that captures the above variables should be drawn up. The roadmap document should be the basis for designing the different short term, medium-term, and long-term solutions, for the different Youth demographics. The approach of designing disjointed, one size fits all, theoretical and not well-researched solutions, as has been the case in the past, should be avoided as they have failed.

Traditional methods of internship, financial empowerment, technical and vocational training, alone, will not solve the youth unemployment problem. They will certainly create a couple of thousand jobs, but not the hundreds of thousands or rather even millions required, given that every year 350,000 are entering the job market.

Conclusion

The New Dawn administration should learn from their predecessors, who panicked after Artists conducted a virtual demonstration in the bush about lack of jobs, after being denied a police permit. The virtual demonstration attracted huge local and international viewership such that the previous administration had to take note.

In panic, they decided to throw money at the problem, by introducing a poorly designed K470 million multisectoral Youth empowerment program and a $30 Million Artists empowerment program, having ignored sound advice about initiatives for youth job creation previously, including from this author. The late interventions never made a difference at the ballot box. Financial capital (money), without intellectual capital has never solved problems.

The advice to Zambian politicians is: do not ignore the Youth unemployment problem till the last minute. And to the current administration, they should not entirely delegate the issue of youth job creation with the civil service technocrats, whose jobs are not threatened by elections. They should look for solutions outside the civil service bureaucracy and engage those in the private sector that may have solutions.

The advice to President Hakainde Hichilema is that he should consider taking a leaf from former United States President Barack Obama’s book when facing the 2008 financial crisis. He appointed Steven Rattner, a Restructuring and Turnaround expert as Car Czar to save US motor industry. The President needs consider appointing a “Youth Job Creation Czar” to help him solve the high youth unemployment problem.

The writer is a Chartered Accountant and Author. He is the Founder of Prosper Knowledge Solutions Ltd, a research-based virtual Knowledge and Strategy firm.