Mwangala Zaloumis, Chairperson of ECZ, has confirmed Hichilema UPND will “win” the “elections” in 2026!
By Azwell Banda
MWANGALA Zaloumis is a lawyer, has never been a judge, is a well-known documented supporter, activist and therefore loyal member of the UPND. Mwangala Zaloumis is therefore a loyal fan and admirer of Hakainde Hichilema, the current President of Zambia. For these perfectly valid and legitimate reasons, all well-meaning Zambians and opposition parties have condemned the appointment of Mwangala Zaloumis as Chairperson of the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ).
Demands for Mwangala Zaloumis to resign from the ECZ are very alive. These demands have been bolstered by the evidence gathered since Mwangala Zaloumis became the chairperson of the ECZ: the opposition and most objective and well-meaning Zambians have no doubt the Mwangala Zaloumis chaired ECZ will plunge Zambia into electoral chaos and possible national mass violence next year.
It is rationally and objectively impossible to imagine Mwangala Zaloumis presiding on an election and announcing the results in which her fellow political party member, a person she admires and supports, and a fellow Zambezi Region “citizen” – Hakainde Hichilema – now current president of Zambia, will have “lost” the “elections”. I am consciously and deliberately putting the words “win”, “won”, “lost” and “elections” in inverted commas precisely because I am satisfied there will be no “free” and “fair elections” next year, if they will happen at all. I have since already said so, on this column.
Hakainde Hichilema, in his typical contempt for all our government institutions, public clamours for “democracy”, “rule of law”, “constitutionalism”, national demands against tribalism and regionalism and a betrayal of the promises he made Zambians when he was in the opposition to improve our entire political ecosystem, arrogantly and in open defiance of all known rules of political decency when appointing a chairperson of the ECZ, made his fan, supporter, party member and fellow Zambezi Region “citizen” who has never been a judge, Mwangala Zaloumis, chairperson of the ECZ.
Mwangala Zaloumis, as a lawyer, who has never been a judge, is a well-known documented supporter, activist and therefore loyal member of the UPND and fan and supporter of Hakainde Hichilema knows and understands why her political leader and current president of Zambia made her chairperson of the ECZ.
If you reverse the roles and imagine Mwangala Zaloumis being a member of an opposition party and active supporter and fan of her opposition party president, and an incumbent president of Zambia appoints a lawyer who has never been a judge, who is a well-known documented supporter, activist and therefore loyal member of the party in government and a fan and supporter of the president of Zambia as chairperson of the ECZ, Mwangala Zaloumis would almost certainly be among the lawyers who would challenge such an abominable, extremely offensive, provocative and dangerous appointment, both politically and in our courts. But Mwangala Zaloumis, nevertheless, accepted the appointment.
Cynically, and quite contemptuous of the opposition, Electoral Commission of Zambia chairperson Mwangala Zaloumis now says she feels sorry for political parties because Zambian voters expect political parties to buy them, during elections. Mwangala Zaloumis says all political parties are guilty of vote buying and violence during elections.
“It’s worrying for us as electoral practitioners, we’ve seen it, we’ve heard about it in all these by-elections. There’ve been complaints from everybody, political parties and NGOs. The problem we have, whether it’s so embedded in our electoral system, we are even wondering that this is becoming the norm, the tradition, I’ll start with electorates. Sometimes, I feel sorry for the political parties because the electorates expect you to buy them, they even tell you how much. I’ve never seen that before, where the electorates even organise themselves on who’s going to collect the money, they count themselves that before we have a meeting, how much are you going to give us? This tantameni (queuing up for money) is everywhere. Unfortunately, every political party that takes part in the electoral process is guilty of that. If it’s not guilty, it’s because they don’t have money. That’s the truth. Until political parties decide through ZCID that we are not going to give anybody any money, maybe you might lose that election but you’ll be setting a standard for the future generation. All political parties are taking part in this vote buying,” Mwangala Zaloumis has been quoted saying in News Diggers of the 20th of February 2025. She said this when she spoke to journalists on the sidelines of a stakeholders meeting last week on Tuesday.
Electoral Commission of Zambia chairperson Mwangala Zaloumis knows and understands, as all sane Zambians throughout the country do, that today, the fourth year of the only term of office of her party in government, that the majority of sane Zambian voters are extremely disappointed and feel cheated and betrayed by her president Hakainde Hichilema and her party the UPND, which is why some of those who bother to vote now openly sell their votes during elections. Most sane Zambians know that Hakainde Hichilema and the UPND, in any free, fair, violence and corruption free elections cannot win elections, of course apart from the Southern Province where they have traditionally abnormally dominated.
The majority of Zambian voters today are praying to God that they should not die before casting their votes in next year’s elections against Hakainde Hichilema and his UPND treacherous party. They desperately cannot wait to get Hakainde Hichilema and his pathetic, lying and treacherous UPND out of government. Mwangala Zaloumis knows this, very well, which is why she is pretending that the ECZ is impotent, it cannot stop vote selling and buying, and allows it to dominate elections: her party can only win elections by buying votes.
I have said ECZ chairperson Mwangala Zaloumis is contemptuous of opposition parties because she knows that her party the UPND, and her candidate Hakainde Hichilema cannot fairly compete at buying votes next year: Hakainde Hichilema and the UPND have a massive advantage over their opposition as they will have more money and buy more votes than all the opposition combined. They have a massive advantage at raising money for the elections next year. And as long as voters are willing to sell their votes, ECZ chairperson Mwangala Zaloumis is confident her presidential candidate and political party will win the elections.
Suddenly, what should be a perfect and normal democratic, legal and constitutional practice – regular mass registration of voters – turns out to be one of the things which will make it almost impossible for the opposition combined to defeat the UPND in next year’s elections: clearly many “clever” voters eager to make money will register as voters and, as the party most likely to offer the highest price for votes, the UPND should logically win the elections next year! It no longer matters how unpopular Hakainde Hichilema and the UPND have become: all ECZ chairperson Mwangala Zaloumis needs to do is make sure her massive voter registration exercise is a success and her presidential candidate and political party will win!
Apparently impotently, ECZ chairperson Mwangala Zaloumis says: “We’ve made our country so bad with money such that whoever pays the piper blows the tune. Whoever buys will be voted for. Even the electorates now think that when you’re paid, then you can vote. When asked, they say ‘tantameni, they just gave us K20 while others were given K100’. So it’s the amount of money spent in vote buying. Let’s confront these issues because it’s happening. All political parties taking part in elections are guilty.” (Emphasis is mine). Mwangala Zaloumis knows which party is most likely to buy more votes, and why.
On violence during elections, Mwangala Zaloumis impotently and hypocritically said: “All political parties are guilty of violence because when we designate areas for campaigns, if another political party dares to go there, they will be beaten. They are crying foul hoping ECZ will come to their aid, we don’t have a police force. For example, a political party found Party B at a house and they talked, unknown to this other party, they had youths who were unleashed and they beat up people and stole their food and burnt their mattresses. ECZ is not there during campaigns because we don’t superintend. This is a political party with leaders in our society but here, they are retaliating and attacking the other people. All these are issues we refer to the conflict resolution committee.”
We see that all the UPND needs to do is prepare to buy votes and be ready to deploy violence, both things they have become great masters at, to win next year’s elections. All ECZ chairperson Mwangala Zaloumis can hypocritically appear to do is “feel sorry for political parties”, forward such reports of violence to other state apparatus and run “sensitisation workshops”. How pathetic.
Capitalism and all its institutions are rotten. Ours is a decomposed capitalism reeking with effluvia and the stench is unbearable. Soon the Zambian masses will wake up, as they should, and decide to destroy and replace a system that sustains them in excruciating and humiliating poverty. What is missing is a political movement or party and leadership willing and ready to lead such a transformation. It will happen, perhaps soon too.
(Comments to: kalindawalo2010@gmail.com)
