WHEN A NATION STANDS AT THE EDGE OF MEMORY
A nation that forgets the road that wounded it may one day clap for the same hands that pushed it into the valley.
As Zambia approaches the 2026 elections, we must rise above slogans, emotions, anger, excitement, and the daily theatre of politics. This is not a season for careless memory. It is a season for national examination.
In 2021, Zambia did not merely change government. Zambia cried for rescue. The people were tired of debt without breathing space, contracts without transparency, power without humility, roads without affordability, and politics that had begun to treat citizens as spectators in their own republic. Families were struggling. Businesses were suffocating. Young people were losing faith. The national treasury was under pressure. The country had defaulted. Confidence was broken. The future looked mortgaged.
That is the Zambia the UPND inherited.
In this context, any fair evaluation of the UPND government from 2021 to 2026 must begin with the truth that their government did not take over a clean table. They found broken chairs, unpaid bills, a wounded economy, and a nation that needed both repair and reassurance.
Have they solved everything? No.
The cost of living remains painful. Load shedding tested the patience of homes, markets, barbershops, welders, millers, farmers, students, and small businesses. Many citizens still feel that relief has not reached their plates. The price of mealie meal, fuel, transport, rent, and basic survival has continued to trouble ordinary families. Some promises have moved slower than expected. Some decisions have been difficult to understand. Some citizens feel unheard.
A government must never be allergic to honest criticism, but criticism must also be intelligent.
We must ask, “were these problems born in 2021, or did 2021 inherit a bleeding national account? Did the current difficulties fall from the sky, or were they the harvest of years of reckless borrowing, weak fiscal discipline, political arrogance, and economic mismanagement?”
Zambia must be careful not to confuse the doctor with the disease.
When a nation is pulled from a ditch, the first few steps are not always beautiful. Recovery is not a song, it is surgery. It can be painful. It can be slow. It can demand patience from the very people who are already tired.
The UPND government deserves credit where credit is due. Debt restructuring was not a small matter. Restoring international confidence was not a small matter. Recruiting teachers and health workers was not a small matter. Free education was not a small matter. Expanding CDF was not a small matter. Attempting to stabilise the economy after default was not a small matter.
Nonetheless, the government must also hear this reality that macroeconomic success must eventually become household relief. A stable balance sheet means little to a mother who cannot afford cooking oil. Debt restructuring must translate into jobs. Investor confidence must become local opportunity. Growth figures must become food, dignity, and wages.
That is the next national assignment.
To my fellow Zambians, I say this with love and seriousness. Emotions do not build nations. Anger may remove a government, but anger alone cannot construct a republic. Nations are built by memory, discipline, patience, planning, production, unity, and sober choices.
There is no single country on earth that has ever developed by political revenge. No nation has ever industrialised through bitterness. No people have ever escaped poverty by running back to the architects of their own collapse simply because the medicine of recovery tasted bitter.
If those who drove the nation into the ditch now return wearing the uniform of rescuers, Zambia must ask, “where was this wisdom when the steering wheel was in their hands?”
This is not hatred. It is national memory.
Zambia must not become a country that punishes repairers because repair is uncomfortable, while rewarding destroyers because destruction once looked exciting.
As President of the United Progressive People, I speak not from desperation, not from bitterness, and not from political injury. UPP may not be on the ballot in this election cycle, but our commitment to Zambia remains alive. Sometimes history removes a man from the noise of immediate contests so that he may prepare more deeply for the architecture of tomorrow.
Our duty now is to help Zambia think.
We shall support what is good, question what is weak, oppose what is dangerous, and defend the long term interests of the Republic. We shall not be enemies of progress. We shall not be merchants of chaos. We shall not clap for failure merely because it helps politics.
Zambia needs a new type of patriotism, one that does not worship governments, but also does not sabotage the nation.
Let the UPND be evaluated fairly. Let the PF record be remembered honestly. Let the opposition offer substance, not nostalgia. Let citizens vote with memory, not mood, and let Zambia choose not merely who speaks loudly, but who can carry the weight of tomorrow.
The ballot of 2026 must not become a funeral for national memory. It must become a mirror. A mirror in which Zambia looks at yesterday, measures today, and chooses tomorrow with wisdom.
The future does not belong to the angriest voices. It belongs to the nations that remember, repair, and rise.
Saviour Chishimba
President
United Progressive People (UPP)