The five-year silence: Why Zambia’s August 13 ballot will shatter the politics of fear
By Thandiwe Ketiš Ngoma
FOR nearly five years, Zambia has been forced to breathe an atmosphere thick with state-sponsored terror and calculated intimidation. Under the iron-fisted administration of President Hakainde Hichilema (HH), a nation historically revered as a beacon of democratic defiance has been systematically blackmailed into submission.
What was fraudulently marketed to the masses as a ‘New Dawn’ of liberty and constitutional rebirth has degenerated into a ruthless, suffocating autocracy.
Under the Hichilema regime, dissent is no longer treated as a constitutional right—it is prosecuted as treason.
The weaponisation of the State: Legal warfare against the people
The blueprint for this engineered silence is as cowardly as it is devastating: liquidate the opposition by turning the judicial system into a political firing squad.
The administration’s highly theatrical repeal of the colonial-era ‘defamation of the president’ law in late 2022 was nothing but a public relations smoke screen designed to dupe international donors. On the ground, the regime simply swapped old tools for deadlier weapons, deploying an insidious web of statutory traps to insulate the presidency from public accountability.
The state’s current arsenal consists of broad, Draconian charges weaponized to ambush anyone brave enough to speak truth to power:
Seditious practices: An archaic, tyrannical charge dragged out of the colonial graveyard to hunt down opposition leaders, muzzle independent media, and criminalize any critique of government failure.
Hate speech & cyber terrorism: Broadly hijacked under the Penal Code and the notorious Cyber Security and Cyber Crimes Act (CSCCA) to police thought, monitor private communications, and drag ordinary, frustrated citizens from their homes for venting online about economic collapse.
Espionage and criminal libel: Extreme felony charges slapped onto political critics to deliberately deny them police bond, subjecting them to weaponised, indefinite pre-trial detention meant to break their spirits, bankrupt their families, and ruin their health.
By turning journalists, opposition figures, and civic leaders into public examples of state vengeance, the Hichilema administration has sent an unmistakable, mafia-style ultimatum to every household in Zambia:
Shut your mouth, or we will lock you away.
“A government that rules by fear confesses its own illegitimacy. When a regime must resort to handcuffs and prison cells to sustain its grip on power, it has surrendered all moral authority to govern.”
Casualties of the regime: The dissidents they tried to bury
This is not a theoretical erosion of rights; it is an active, state-directed purge.
The Hichilema regime has unleashed the full weight of the state security apparatus to hunt down alternative voices. The growing list of political prisoners and persecuted citizens exposes the true, totalitarian face of the ‘New Dawn’ machinery.
The silenced leaders and journalists
Maureen Mabonga & Munir Zulu:
In a savage escalation of state overreach, these two opposition Members of Parliament were aggressively hunted, prosecuted, and jailed. Mabonga’s shocking eight-month prison sentence for ‘seditious practices’ over a political speech proved that even parliamentary immunity is powerless against the regime’s vindictiveness.
Thomas Allan Zgambo:
A relentless veteran journalist and writer for the Zambia Whistleblower, Zgambo has been repeatedly abducted by state agents and slapped with sedition charges for investigative reporting that dared to expose government corruption and question massive properties linked directly to President Hichilema.
Dr Fred M’membe:
The leader of the Socialist Party has faced a non-stop barrage of state-sponsored lawfare. He has been slapped with absurd charges of sedition and espionage—felonies carrying catastrophic prison terms—simply for analysing the president’s controversial foreign policy and regional military alignments in a documentary.
Edith Nawakwi & Dr Dan Pule:
In a sweeping multi-party crackdown, the late Forum for Democracy and Development (FDD) leader Edith Nawakwi and Christian Democratic Party (CDP) leader Dan Pule were rounded up by heavily armed police, facing weaponised charges of hate speech and espionage designed to decapitate their political organizations.
Raphael Nakacinda:
The Patriotic Front (PF) Secretary General has been subjected to relentless, targeted harassment. The regime’s desperation to silence him reached a comical low when state police forcefully raided and shut down live broadcasts at Breeze FM in Chipata, purely to stop the public from hearing Nakacinda’s interview.
Dr. Sishuwa Sishuwa:
Not even academia is safe. Dr Sishuwa, a world-renowned historian and political analyst, was swiftly targeted for a police investigation under the guise of ‘hate speech’ after publishing a brilliant op-ed exposing how Hichilema uses state institutions to settle personal scores with his political rivals.
The illusion of democracy
For five agonising years, Zambians have watched their neighbors, commentators, and leaders whisked away in unmarked vehicles, dragged into endless legal warfare designed to bleed them dry emotionally and financially.
Freedom of expression and the right to assemble have been reduced to a cruel joke—tolerated only if you are wearing ruling party regalia and singing praises to the executive.
This systematic terror has forced an entire population into a defensive, collective whisper.
The explosive rage over skyrocketing fuel prices, a catastrophic energy crisis, total economic collapse, and a mountain of broken campaign promises has not disappeared; it has been bottled up out of sheer terror of state retaliation.
August 13: The day of reckoning
But tyranny always has an expiration date, and Hichilema’s expires on August 13.
The state can deploy riot police to crush peaceful assemblies, wiretap phones, raid independent radio stations, and fill cells with protestors—but they cannot step inside the voting booth.
The upcoming general election is no longer a polite democratic exercise; it is an all-out war for the soul of the nation. It is a referendum on freedom itself, and the exact moment the heavy hand of the state will be forcefully amputated from the necks of the people.
Inside that booth, the state’s threats evaporate. The police cannot arrest a secret ballot. The President cannot jail a vote.
For five years, the people of Zambia have swallowed their anger and spoken in fearful whispers. On August 13, the ballot box will weaponise that silence, turning it into a political earthquake that will shatter this regime of fear forever.
