The Opposition Carelessly Gave Away the Seat
Amb. Emmanuel Mwamba Wrote;
Preening from the Chawama Constituency by-election electoral victory, the Opposition moved into Kasama with overwhelming confidence and hope that it would score a double.
But as matters quickly unfolded, the Opposition learnt nothing from Chawama.
Citizen First, Socialist Party along with United Prosperous and Peaceful Party (UPPZ), New Focus Party (NFP) competed alongside the Patriotic Front’s candidate standing under Tonse Alliance on the Forum for Democracy and Development (FDD) and the ruling United Party for National Development (UPND).
Like the Chawama race, this was expected to be a two-horse race between the UPND and the PF or its derivative as the mayoral seat was held by the Patriotic Front.
But the ranking of the Opposition choose to use the by-elections to test the depth of the waters, try out their own system and to sell their presodential candidates.
It became clear, that the Patriotic Front, expected to win theough its surrogates, was engaged in acts of self sabotaged.
The campaign in Chawama exposed the deepening rift within the former ruling party.
While Acting President Given Lubinda led a strong comprising; Matero MP, Miles Sampa and former Ministers, Chishimba Kambwili and Lawrence Sichalwe, Mporokoso MP, Brian Mundubile and his loyal team of MPs conspicously stayed away from the campaigns.
At the height of the campaigns in Chawama, news filtered through that the Lubinda led Patriotic Front was expelled from the Tonse Alliance, a political alliance where the Party had drawn Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) National Cingress Party (NCP) and now Forum for Democracy and Development (FDD).
The political alliance is an electoral pact to enable the PF to participate in elections following President Hakainde Hichilema’s determined quest and schemes to ban and prevent the former ruling party from participating in elections, and has engaged in schemes to diminish its past political influence on order to stop it from reclaiming its past political fortunes and control.
The meeting to expel the PF was strangely attended apparently, by senior Members of the Central Committee that included among othersbBrian Mundubile and Mutotwe Kafwaya.
When this broke out, the media defence of the unprecedented action to expel the PF announced by Tonse Alliance National Coordinator, Zumani Zimba and Vice Chairperson Apostle Dan Pule, were never denied or denounced by both Mundubile and Kafwaya.
The PF immediately declared this meeting illegal as it was not chaired by Lubinda and threatened any PF member associating with the break-away entity with stern disciplinary action inclusing ultimate expulsion.
Lubinda also convened his own Tonse Alliance Meeting that attracted 13 new political parties and some civil society groupings.
When the Chawama win came, it only went to emphasise the deepening divisions in the former ruling party.
Lubinda’s team celebrated the electoral victory with an impromptu drive through into Chawama that was joined by the excited residents while the Mundubile camp only issued a terse and dry congratulatory statement to the winner Brightwell Nundwe.
Instead, Mundubile and his team took the glory to Kasama and appeared in a show of self-promotional force.
Earlier, before the break-up, Lubinda proposed that Tonse Alliance should use the PF adopted candidate, Peter Yuda Chikweti, on the Socialist Party as Special Purpose Vehicle for Kasama Mayoral Election as a quid-pro-quo, or reward to the Fed M’membe organisations that had campaigned with the Alliance in Chawama and had deployed support resources into the campaigns.
This proposal from Lubinda and the PF attracted anger, mistrust and recriminations from the Mundubile camp in Tonse Alliance as Socialist Party was not a formal member of the Alliance and was a source of earlier contraversial botched disciplinary actions against Lubinda and Secretary General Raphael Nakacinda driven by Spokesperson Sean Tembo and Zumani Zimba.
When Lubinda’s team announced a trip into Kasama to beef up the camapign, it was met with a dangerous and threatening leaked viral audio attributed to former Northern Province Chairperson, Chipili Chomba, that warmed that if Lubinda stepped into Kasama, he would be met by unkown consequences.
Chipili was among the six Member of the Central Committee removed at the eve of the scheduled November 2025 party’s General Conference which Lubinda postponed once again.
Clearly the mayoral campaigns in Kasama had unfprtunately become a mere side-show to the deepening divisions in the Party.
While the Chawama win acted as a hopeful trigger to a despairing nation,if successful, may tilt the outcome of the August 2026 General Elections against the UPND, but the Patriotic Front was, instead, steeped into tit-for-tat political battles.
All national eyes were turned to Kasama.
Kasama has 138,000 registered voters, 19 wards, two Constituencies(Kasama and Lukashya) and 218 polling stations.
Therefore the work needed in Kasama was immense and required extensive resources such as many vehicles, over 440 polling party agents and man power to set up a strong command centre and ward campaign centres.
Instead the nation was greeted by the continous wrangling in the PF that culminated with a shock Conference in Lusaka, comprising almost the entire senior team withdrawn from Kasama to purport to elect Mundubile as President of the break-away Tonse Alliance.
On the other hand, the UPND, intensively covered in electoral disgrace from Chawama, were not going to experience another electoral set back.
The UPND deployed in Kasama, a strong team led by Commerce Minister Chipoka Mulenga, Mines Minister, Paul Kabuswe and Sports Minister, Elvis Nkandu who were joined by over ten ministers, reguonal district commissioners and horde of cadres transported from Lusaka and Choma.
The ruling Party placed at the centre of the campaign, Kasama PF MP, Sibongile Mwamba who did not spare time to buy members of the PF structures and Ward Councillors in the two constituencies.
The UPND proceeded to spend huge amounts in buying voters and stakeholders.
At the last day, the Electoral Commission of Zambia brought in teo Zambia Airforce Helicopters demonstrating the vastness of the district and expanse of work ahead.
Instead the Patriotic Front was consumed in its own macabre of self-anhilation.
On yhe eve of the election, Archbishop Ignatius Chama from the Atchdiocese of Kasama issued a pre-election message of hope, urging a mostly devout catholic voter population to turn up in large numbers to express themselves and despite the bounty corrupt gifts openly being given (by the UPND) to vote wisely.
This was a clear bonus message for the Opposition that bolstered the last mile campaign.
And the early vote results showed quickly that this seat would be won by the Opposition.
The votes in the urban areas of Kasama were clunted before many witnesses and Tonse Alliance Patrick Chikweti Yuda opened what appeared to be unassailable lead.
It was not.
Kasama and the nation woke up to a rude shock that the votes from far flung polling staions in rural areas, where the despair and disgruntledness of unpaid farmers, poor feeder roads, lack of boreholes, apparently voted overhwelmingly for the UPND.
Recognising that the skeptical identified this as manipulation of electoral results, the UPND, began to sing CDF and FISP as reason the rural community could have given them such a generous vote.
The UPND had also unleashed violence with over 5 people from the Opposition injured and admitted to Kasama General Hospital while the public damage caused so vehicles belonging to Mpika MP, Francis Kapyanga and Lukashy MP, George Chisanga extensively damaged.
In the end, the ECZ announced that the UPND’s Bryson Simposya had won the by-election with 17,647 votes, while the PF/FDD Candidate Peter Chikweti Yuda who polled 14,302.
This is an election victory squandered by the Patriotic Front by its careless and continued in-fighting thereby causing self-harm.
The electoral outcome also brought new perspectives and insights on both the Citizen First and Socialist Party, who performed unexpectedly poorly, that this development raise fresh urgent questions, but this a debate for another day.
