By Editor Zambia
If leadership is about institutions, why are we still debating personal anointments?
Let us ask the uncomfortable questions because politics, like philosophy, collapses when it avoids them. 
When the late President Edgar Lungu allegedly spoke of a “preferred successor,” what exactly was he doing? Was he exercising a constitutional authority, or was he merely expressing a personal opinion, dressed up by loyalists into a binding political command?
And more importantly: does such a preference carry any real weight in a democratic system?
First question: Who confers legitimacy?
Is leadership inherited through whispers and endorsements, or earned through open contest and popular mandate?
If a former president’s preference were decisive, why do we bother with party constitutions, elective conferences, and national elections? Why mobilise members, campaign across provinces, or convince voters at all?
A successor who relies on blessing rather than ballots begins with a credibility deficit. Authority borrowed is authority questioned.
Second question: What does history teach us?How many “preferred successors” have actually survived political reality?
Across Africa and beyond, anointed heirs often fail not because they lack endorsement but because they lack ownership. Voters do not inherit loyalty. Party members do not outsource judgment. The public asks a simpler question: What have you done, and what can you do now?
If preference were enough, political transitions would be smooth rituals. Instead, they are messy, contested, and brutally democratic.
Third question: Was Edgar Lungu himself a product of preference?Did Edgar Lungu ascend because he was “preferred,” or because of circumstances, party dynamics, and political timing aligned?
If his own rise was not the result of an anointment, why should his alleged preference now be elevated into such a doctrine?
Isn’t this selective logic invoked only when it is convenient?
Fourth question: Who benefits from this narrative?
Does the idea of a “preferred successor” empower the party or freeze it?
Often, this language serves a narrower purpose: to silence debate, intimidate rivals, and shortcut competition. It replaces ideas with lineage and merit with proximity. In doing so, it weakens the very organisation it claims to protect.
A party that fears internal competition is already conceding defeat.
Last question: What truly matters?
Is it the endorsement of the departed or the confidence of the living?Politics is not ancestral worship. It is a forward-looking contest of ideas, credibility, and trust. The dead may be respected, but they do not vote. The living do.
In conclusion, preference is not destiny.
At best, a “preferred successor” is a footnote. At worst, it is a distraction.
What matters is not who was whispered about in corridors, but who can stand before members and citizens, withstand scrutiny, articulate a vision, and win fairly and openly.
Anything else is nostalgia masquerading as strategy. Nostalgia, however emotionally powerful, has never been a substitute for leadership.
