The historical win in the elections by Zambia’s Hakainde Hichilema has stirred some serious conversations in the Zimbabwean political space, with those in opposition seeing the victory as a harbinger for the 2023 Zimbabwean elections.
The ruling Zanu PF party on the other hand is now also claiming Hakainde Hichilema, in a post on one of their Facebook page named EDhasmyhope the ruling party says Hakainde Hichilema’s UPND party is similar to Zanu PF, than the outgoing Patriotic Front, the irony!
Below is their full statement;
HH contested Presidential Election 6 times and Wamba Brigade is not aware of that
What Wamba Brigade,dont know is that historically and ideologically speaking, Lungu’s party is the real MDC of Zambia although both Lungu’s party and Hichilema’s UPND are splinter parties of Chiluba’s MMD, Hichilema’s party has the closest links with Kaunda’s UNIP as a lot of leaders who served under Kaunda joined hands with Hichilema’s party.In 2006 for example, UNIP and other opposition parties fielded Hichilema as their presidential candidate. So UPND, the party of Hichilema, is the one that can be said to share historical and ideological similarities with Zanu PF.However the major observation with Zambian politics if compared to politics in the rest of SADC, is that it is the only country alongside Malawi that have seen their founding independent ruling parties being dislodged from power several times. Kaunda first lost it to the party of Lungu, then led by Chiluba. At one time, albeit inside a coalition UNIP won back the power and lost it again when Lungu came to power. However the disappearance of UNIP from the Zambian political turf today can be attributed to the personalisation of leadership of the UNIP presidency to the Kaundas as KK’s son stuck to the helm of that party among many other reasons.As for the second republic in Zimbabwe, those in the know are aware how Lungu tried to entertain the idea of militarily coming to the rescue of RG following the November 2017 transition in Zimbabwe. However he later abandoned the idea after noticing that the caucus for liberation war parties of Southern Africa were fully behind the coup that was not a coup depending on one’s persuasion.
In my view, in so far as the Zambian threat is concerned, the second republic in Zimbabwe will welcome the victory of Hichilema.
