What happened to the Hichilema we had in opposition?
By Sishuwa Sishuwa
It all started in early October last year when rumours swelled that former president Edgar Lungu, who, having initially retired from politics in August 2021, was planning a political comeback, seeking to capitalise on the growing public discontent against his successor Hakainde Hichilema. In response, a ruling party activist swiftly petitioned the Constitutional Court, seeking a declaration that Lungu is not eligible to stand in any future election because of the constitutional two-term limit.
Initially, there were 11 judges of the Constitutional Court who were set to hear and determine the Lungu eligibility case. Of these, six were generally seen as set to rule in Lungu’s favour since he had appointed all of them and they had, on previous occasions, ruled that he was eligible to stand. The remaining five judges – consisting of four new justices appointed by Hichilema and one Lungu-appointed judge but promoted by Hichilema who has consistently ruled that he does not qualify to stand for another election – were generally seen as set to rule in Hichilema’s favour. Upon realising that he lacked a clear majority on the Constitutional Court bench, Hichilema fired three judges, bringing the total number of the remaining judges to eight – four judges appointed by Hichilema and four appointed by Lungu.
Then, the deputy president of the Constitutional Court Arnold Mweetwa Shilimi – one of the newly appointed judges and a very close personal friend of Hichilema – stopped one of the experienced judges, appointed by Lungu, from taking part in the eligibility case on the basis that the panel of judges hearing the matter should consist of an odd, not an even, number. This decision further reduced the total number of judges who finally sat to hear the Lungu eligibility case to seven, made up of one Judge appointed by Lungu but promoted by Hichilema and four judges appointed by Hichilema and the two who were appointed by Lungu.
Since one of the three Lungu-appointed judges has been promoted by Hichilema and has always ruled that Lungu is not eligible to stand for election, the number of judges widely seen as likely to rule in Hichilema’s political interest is five with the remaining two likely to dissent or abandon their previous decisions and follow suit. This five is the guaranteed majority that Hichilema is counting on to exclude his main rival from the 2026 election when the case comes up for ruling on Tuesday, 10 December 2024. With a reconstituted Constitutional Court, the outcome of the eligibility case is such a foregone conclusion that it can only go one way.
Hichilema thinks that removing Lungu, his main rival, reinforces his chances of re-election. To the contrary, the orchestrated exclusion of Lungu is a grave miscalculation that will come back to haunt Hichilema. In addition to the lasting damage a pro-Hichilema verdict will cause to both the remnants of credibility of the Constitutional Court and, more generally, the already weakened standing of the judiciary, the exclusion of Lungu opens room for the emergence of a better and perhaps more credible opposition challenger.
I am aware that Hichilema also plans to disqualify Fred M’membe from the 2026 election using a dubious conviction from one of the many trumped-up charges the state or supporters of the ruling party have brought against the opposition Socialist Party leader. Not even the added exclusion of M’membe will save Hichilema, though the move, after the previous exclusion of Lungu, will further heighten tension and leave the country on the brink of social unrest. Hichilema’s record in office – particularly on the main issues such as anti-corruption, national unity, the economy, the state of democracy and human rights, and the cost-of-living crisis – is so dreadfully poor that it is his single major opponent. All the excluded candidates will have to do is to back the common candidate who will be adopted by the opposition.
Unless he manipulates the constitution to extend his stay in office or remove the requirement that the winning presidential candidate should secure over 50% of the total votes cast, I simply do not see Hichilema winning a second term in 2026. Hichilema probably knows this, which might explain why he is increasingly using repression to contain dissent, inducing traditional leaders and weaker opposition parties to endorse him, and destroying the more serious political opposition, instead of delivering on his election campaign promises.
Having spent fifteen years in opposition, it is understandable that Hichilema does not want to leave power after only five years. However, he only has himself to blame for the growing public discontent against his leadership. He has antagonised the multi-ethnic coalition that brought him to power, concentrated on fighting his predecessor rather than governing, prioritised the arrest of political opponents and critics rather than the deplorable economic conditions in which majority Zambians continue to live, paid more attention to the interests of foreign actors especially mining companies rather than domestic concerns, nurtured high-level corruption in government, destroyed any remaining semblance of autonomy in formal institutions by packing them with loyalists, and embraced and refined the authoritarian tendencies of his predecessors. All things considered, Hichilema is a failed political experiment.
Sometimes I ask myself: what has happened to the Hichilema we had in opposition? The Hichilema in opposition could actively listen and learn. He promised people what they wanted, identified with the people and their needs, and played the part of the ordinary citizen who can represent all citizens. He appeared as a decent political leader who was outraged by anti-democratic or repressive legislation, abuse, injustice, lies, corruption, and ethnic-regional divisions, and a steady pair of hands who could help restore Zambia’s democratic tradition and resuscitate the faltering economy. In power or since his ascent to the position of President, Hichilema has so easily found comfort in the company of all the vices he denounced in opposition that one may think his conscience has been stolen. What would Hichilema’s former self think of him now?
Lacking intellectual curiosity, the Hichilema in power is dripping with arrogance and talks even where he should listen. He is extremely detached from reality, has U-turned on many of the positions that made him attractive to most Zambians when he was in opposition, and has systematically moved to alienate the various constituencies (in the broader sense) that voted for him. Much of his behaviour seems to be geared – if any sense can be attributed to it – towards deliberately shedding the support that brought him into office, and certainly not mobilising support from anywhere. Indeed, he seems to enjoy de-mobilising his earlier support. Since he was elected, he shows very little sign of feeling any need for popular support. On the contrary, he goes out of his way to spit in the faces of his former supporters. Perhaps he is supremely confident of using the Electoral Commission of Zambia, the police, and the judiciary – formal institutions that he has loaded with his supporters – to steal the election. Perhaps he aims to declare an interminable state of emergency. Maybe he aims to change the constitution so that he can never be removed from office.
In 2006, President Levy Mwanawasa said this about Hichilema: “His understanding of politics is that it doesn’t matter; you can cheat, provided you get your goals. The problem [with] Mr Hichilema is…that he wants to cheat, to mislead, to show that he is what he is not”. Was Hichilema a fraud who fooled many into believing that he was a bankable candidate only to show his true colours after assuming State power? Or perhaps he was, all along, just an incompetent political leader whose many weaknesses we overlooked in our quest to get rid of Lungu and a compulsive liar who made various promises which he had no intention of implementing and, in many cases, had the definite intention of doing exactly the opposite? Was his strategy to propose popular policies in order to get elected, and then to drop them after his election?
Whatever the case, I miss the Hichilema we had before 2021. The one we have now is a completely different Hichilema I increasingly no longer recognise. What has really happened to the Hichilema we had in opposition?
What happened to the Hichilema we had in opposition?
