OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT DUMA BOKO: YOU, OF ALL PEOPLE, SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER
OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT DUMA BOKO: YOU, OF ALL PEOPLE, SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER
Dear President Duma Gideon Boko,
I write this open letter with a heavy heart and profound disappointment.
Not because Botswana is our neighbour.
Not because you came to Zambia.
Not because African leaders should not maintain relations with one another.
But because you are Duma Boko.
You are not simply another African Head of State attending another presidential inauguration.
You are a lawyer. A constitutional law scholar. A Harvard Law School graduate. A former opposition leader. A human-rights advocate. A man whose own political journey was built around challenging an established political order and advancing democratic change.
Harvard Law School itself describes your background in constitutional law, public-interest litigation and human-rights work.
That history is precisely why your decision to attend President Hakainde Hichilema’s second-term inauguration in Zambia has disappointed me so deeply.
Mr President, you should have known better.
You should have understood what your presence meant at a time when Zambia was emerging from one of the most deeply contested elections in our recent history.
The August 13 election did not simply end with the declaration of a winner.
It was followed by serious questions about the electoral process, including allegations of irregularities in vote tabulation, the treatment of opposition stakeholders, the deployment of security forces, the detention of opposition figures and the closure of courts at a critical moment when the opposition sought to challenge the result.
These concerns were not confined to one political party. International reporting also documented the controversy surrounding the election, the detention of opposition leaders and the closure of courts when an electoral challenge was being contemplated.
And yet, President Boko, you chose to stand at the inauguration as though Zambia had simply completed an ordinary democratic exercise.
That is what I find difficult to reconcile with the Boko I have known and admired.
You know what democracy means.
You know that democracy is not merely the casting of ballots.
You know that democracy is not merely the announcement of results.
And you certainly know that democracy is not merely the swearing-in of the declared winner.
Democracy is the integrity of the entire process.
It is the confidence that the ballot was protected.
It is the confidence that votes were counted honestly.
It is the confidence that electoral institutions acted independently.
It is the confidence that political opponents could question results without being treated as enemies of the state.
It is the confidence that, when an election is disputed, the courts remain open and accessible.
That is what democracy means.
And these are precisely the principles that make your attendance in Lusaka so difficult to understand.
Mr President, imagine this was Botswana.
Imagine that after an election, the opposition produced its own records and questioned discrepancies in the announced results.
Imagine that an accredited opposition stakeholder was removed and detained after raising questions about the figures.
Imagine that opposition leaders were arrested and charged with offences carrying the gravest consequences.
Imagine that a prominent opposition figure died during a security operation and serious questions were subsequently raised about what happened.
Imagine that the courts were inaccessible precisely when the constitutional window for challenging the election was closing.
Then imagine an African president—particularly a president who had once been an opposition leader himself—arrived in Gaborone and sat in the front row at the inauguration of the disputed winner.
Would that sit comfortably with you?
Would you not ask questions?
Would you not demand transparency?
Would you not insist that the rule of law be protected?
Would you not understand the pain of those who believed their democratic voice had been denied?
I believe you would.
Because you have lived the other side of politics.
You did not arrive at the presidency of Botswana through an uninterrupted political establishment.
You came from the opposition.
You know what it means to challenge power.
You know what it means to believe that an established political order must change.
You know what it means for citizens to place their hope in an opposition movement.
And in 2024, you led the Umbrella for Democratic Change to a historic victory, ending decades of uninterrupted Botswana Democratic Party rule.
Your own political journey therefore became a powerful African example of democratic change.
That is why I expected more from you.
I expected the former opposition leader.
I expected the constitutional lawyer.
I expected the human-rights advocate.
I expected the Harvard scholar.
I expected the man who understood that political legitimacy is not simply about occupying the presidential chair.
I expected Boko the democrat.
Instead, what many Zambians saw was the President of Botswana standing at an inauguration whose political context was deeply contested.
And that image will not easily disappear.
DIPLOMACY MUST NEVER BECOME AN EXCUSE FOR SILENCE
I understand diplomacy.
I understand regional relations.
I understand that Botswana and Zambia are neighbours and members of the same African family.
But friendship between nations should never require silence in the face of serious questions about democracy.
A true friend does not merely attend your celebration.
A true friend also tells you when something is wrong.
President Boko, you could have attended Zambia without appearing to give unconditional validation to everything that happened during and after the election.
You could have said:
“We respect the sovereignty of Zambia, but we also respect the Zambian people’s right to a transparent, credible and accountable electoral process.”
That would have been statesmanship.
That would have been the voice of the Boko many Africans came to respect.
WHAT ABOUT THE COURTS?
This is perhaps the issue that troubles me most.
Your legal background makes this question unavoidable.
An election dispute is not supposed to be settled by political power.
It is supposed to be settled through constitutional institutions.
Your own legal training should tell you that when citizens or political parties have a constitutional right to challenge an election, access to the courts is fundamental.
Yet the closure of courts at the critical deadline for filing an electoral challenge became one of the most disturbing aspects of Zambia’s post-election crisis. Reuters reported that opposition actors were prevented from accessing the courts as the deadline approached.
As a lawyer, what did that moment say to you?
As a former opposition leader, what would it have said to you if you were the one trying to challenge an election?
As President of Botswana, what precedent does it set for Africa when constitutional remedies become inaccessible at the moment they are most needed?
These are not partisan questions.
They are constitutional questions.
AND THEN THERE WAS THE HUMAN COST
Behind political statistics are human beings.
Behind election results are families.
Behind arrests are parents, spouses and children.
Behind political detention are human lives.
And behind the death of Hon. Mutotwe Kafwaya is a family that must live with questions that cannot simply be buried beneath political narratives.
Your attendance at the inauguration, in that context, was bound to be interpreted by many as a willingness to move on without demanding answers.
Perhaps that was not your intention.
But leadership is also about understanding the message your presence communicates.
PRESIDENT BOKO, I AM NOT ASKING YOU TO SUPPORT THE OPPOSITION
Let me be very clear.
I am not asking you to support Brian Mundubile.
I am not asking you to support Tonse-Pamodzi.
I am not asking you to oppose President Hichilema.
I am asking you to stand for the principles that your own life and education have taught you to defend.
Stand for democracy.
Stand for constitutionalism.
Stand for the rule of law.
Stand for credible elections.
Stand for human rights.
Stand for the right of an opposition to exist without being criminalised.
Those principles do not belong to Tonse.
They do not belong to UPND.
They do not belong to Botswana.
They do not belong to Zambia.
They belong to Africa.
MR PRESIDENT, YOUR LEGACY IS BIGGER THAN ONE INAUGURATION
You have an opportunity to become one of Africa’s important democratic voices.
Your journey from opposition leader to President of Botswana already carries enormous historical significance.
Do not allow diplomatic protocol to diminish the moral authority that journey gave you.
Do not allow the photograph from an inauguration to speak louder than the principles that brought you to the presidency.
And please do not forget the man who once sat on the opposition benches and demanded that power answer to the people.
Remember Boko the opposition leader.
Remember Boko the lawyer.
Remember Boko the constitutional scholar.
Remember Boko the human-rights advocate.
And remember that the same democratic principles you demanded when you were outside power must remain sacred now that you occupy the highest office in Botswana.
Because democracy cannot be defended selectively.
If it is wrong when done to you, it must be wrong when done to someone else.
If the rule of law matters in Botswana, it must matter in Zambia.
If opposition rights matter in Botswana, they must matter in Zambia.
If access to justice matters in Botswana, it must matter in Zambia.
If the people’s vote matters in Botswana, it must matter in Zambia.
And if you would demand answers when a government violates these principles at home, then you should not be silent when similar concerns are raised elsewhere in Africa.
DEAR PRESIDENT BOKO, YOU SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER
I say this respectfully, but firmly.
Your attendance disappointed me.
Not because I expected you to become a Zambian opposition politician.
But because I expected you to remain Duma Boko.
The Duma Boko who understood the opposition.
The Duma Boko who understood constitutional law.
The Duma Boko who understood human rights.
The Duma Boko who understood the importance of institutions.
The Duma Boko who understood that democracy is more than the ceremony that follows an election.
Mr President, Zambia did not need another dignitary at that inauguration.
Zambia needed African leaders willing to remind us that power must always remain accountable to the people.
Perhaps one day, when history looks back at the events of August and September 2026, your attendance will be seen merely as an act of diplomatic courtesy.
I sincerely hope so.
But today, for many Zambians who feel that their democratic rights were violated or denied, your presence was deeply painful.
And that is why I write to you.
Not with hatred.
Not with disrespect.
But with disappointment.
Because when a person of your credentials chooses to remain silent at a moment when democratic principles are being questioned, that silence becomes louder than any speech.
President Boko, you have spent much of your life fighting for the principles of democracy.
Please do not let your presidency become the reason those who believed in you begin to question those principles.
Yours sincerely,
Changala Siame: BBA/ MBA-FINANCE
Zambian citizen and advocate for democracy, constitutionalism and the rule of law.