American Senators: Hichilema Is Using the Very Laws That Once Jailed Him
US Senators: Hichilema Is Using the Very Laws That Once Jailed Him
Four members of the United States Senate, including the Ranking Member of the Foreign Relations Committee, warn of a deteriorating electoral environment on the eve of Zambia’s general election.
On the eve of Zambia’s general election, four United States senators have issued a public warning that the ruling party is undermining the country’s electoral environment, and that President Hakainde Hichilema is deploying against his opponents the same laws once used to imprison him.
The statement, released in Washington on 12 August, carries unusual weight. It is signed by Senator Jeanne Shaheen, Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; Senator Cory Booker, Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health Policy; and Senators Jeff Merkley and Chris Van Hollen.
The senators said they were “especially concerned” by the ruling party’s attempts to undermine the electoral environment ahead of the vote. They observed that its recent conduct recalls earlier elections in which political opponents, including Mr Hichilema himself, were arrested to silence opposition, and that the President and the UPND now “appear to be using the same laws that once victimized and imprisoned political figures like Hichilema to propel him to a second term.”
They identified two specific failures. Laws governing political gatherings, they said, are “selectively enforced to stifle opposition rallies.” And Zambia’s Constitution and electoral framework were, in their words, “hastily reformed without meaningful civil society consultation.
The intervention lands at the close of a campaign in which the leading opposition candidate, Brian Mundubile, has seen more than fifty members of his campaign team detained without charge, his media centre raided, over seven million kwacha earmarked for polling agents seized from his lawyers’ chambers, and an entire province abandoned on his schedule after his party cited fears for the safety of those attending.
It also follows an Amnesty International report published on 10 August describing an alarming regression into authoritarian practices in Zambia, and a statement the same day by former Attorney General Musa Mwenye that the country now holds political detainees in extra-judicial detention.
Notably, the senators did not endorse any candidate. They urged all parties to commit to peaceful elections and to the consistent enforcement of the law regardless of party affiliation, called on the US State Department to deepen engagement with Zambian civil society, and said they remained cautiously hopeful the election would provide the opportunity for a free and fair contest.
That is the charitable reading available to the government today. The less comfortable one is this: when senior c of his own past persecution, the warning is no longer coming from the opposition. It is coming from the world.