By EditorZambia
ECONOMIC Front (EF) president Wynter Kabimba has ignited fierce debate with his blunt assertion that anyone defending the Lungu family is a criminal.
His words are not the language of diplomacy. They are the language of moral outrage. Yet when weighed against the mountain of judicial findings and documented forfeitures linked to the family of former president Edgar Chagwa Lungu, Kabimba’s statement is less an insult and more a hard conclusion drawn from unfolding legal reality. 
For years, critics of the Patriotic Front (PF) administration warned that Zambia was sliding into a culture of impunity, where political power was converted into private wealth on an industrial scale. Those warnings were often dismissed as partisan bitterness. Today, the courts have spoken with clarity that politics cannot dilute.
The Lusaka High Court and the Economic and Financial Crimes Court have ordered the forfeiture of dozens of properties, luxury apartments, farms and 79 motor vehicles linked to the Lungu family after finding that the assets could not be reasonably explained through lawful income.
These were not social media allegations. They were findings grounded in documentary evidence, employment records, tax data, and sworn testimony. In one of the most striking rulings, the court examined the employment history of Dalitso Lungu, noting modest earnings that could not conceivably justify ownership of fleets of vehicles and high value real estate.
The explanation that the assets were simply gifts from his father collapsed under legal scrutiny because no lawful source of the father’s capacity to bestow such gifts was demonstrated.
Similar conclusions followed in cases involving former first lady Esther Lungu and former first daughter Tasila Lungu. Properties worth tens of millions of Kwacha were forfeited after courts determined that the holders failed to prove legitimate acquisition. These were non-conviction based forfeitures provided for under the Forfeiture of Proceeds of Crime Act.
The State met its burden by showing reasonable grounds that the properties were tainted. The burden shifted. The explanations were absent.
In a nation where ordinary citizens struggle with unemployment, erratic electricity supply, and underfunded public services, the spectacle of a ruling family amassing such extraordinary wealth without transparent business records strikes at the heart of social justice.
Edgar Lungu entered office declaring assets reportedly in the region of two million Kwacha. Within seven years, members of his immediate circle were associated with properties, farms, filling stations, and fleets of vehicles whose value dwarfed any publicly known legitimate earnings.
Kabimba’s argument is simple. To defend this pattern in the face of court judgments is to defend the proceeds of crime. That is why he uses the word criminal. He is not referring to ordinary citizens expressing sympathy. He is targeting political leaders who continue to champion the revival of the PF as though nothing happened.
Figures such as Brian Mundubile, Given Lubinda, and Makebi Zulu have positioned themselves as torchbearers of the Lungu legacy. They frame their defence as loyalty and resistance against what they call political persecution. Yet loyalty to individuals cannot override loyalty to the rule of law. When courts of competent jurisdiction have detailed unexplained wealth and ordered forfeiture, defending that record ceases to be a political opinion and begins to look like an attempt to sanitise plunder.
History offers sobering lessons about what happens when societies normalise the revival of disgraced systems. After the fall of the Nazi Party in Germany, its symbols, slogans, and structures were outlawed because the ideology had inflicted catastrophic harm. Attempts to resurrect it were banned or marginalised because democratic systems understood that some legacies were too toxic to recycle. Reviving the PF whose tenure was marked by systemic corruption and violence raises similar moral questions, even if contexts differ.
Closer to home, the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) had to undergo profound rebranding under Lazarus Chakwera to distance itself from the authoritarian shadow of Hastings Kamuzu Banda. It took alliances, public contrition, and structural reform to convince voters that it had changed. The lesson is clear. Political redemption requires acknowledgment of past wrongs, not defiance of documented misconduct which our good gentlemen Lubinda, Makebi and Mundubile are not doing.
Even Socialist Party leader Fred M’membe has urged voters to judge politicians by what they did while in office. That standard, applied honestly, demands uncomfortable reflection from those seeking to resurrect the PF brand. What contracts were awarded? Who benefited? How were public resources managed? These are not abstract questions. They are the difference between governance and grand theft.
To argue that reviving the PF without reckoning with these findings is harmless political pluralism ignores the scale of alleged damage.
Under the PF, Zambia’s debt ballooned, public procurement was repeatedly questioned while violence and cadreism flourished. Now the courts have added a financial ledger to the moral indictment.
It is only an incorrigible criminal or a die-hard tribalist who cannot acknowledge these facts.
Kabimba’s words sting because they strip away the euphemism of calling a spade a big spoon or buttering stale bread. If defending the Lungu family means dismissing court judgments, trivialising unexplained wealth, and campaigning to restore a system associated with such excess, then the defence becomes complicity. A society that shrugs at that complicity risks entrenching a culture where public office is seen as the fastest route to private fortune.
Zambia stands at a crossroads. The choice is not merely between political parties. It is between normalising a past defined by judicially confirmed asset forfeitures and insisting that leadership be anchored in transparency and accountability. Those who seek to revive the old order must first confront the record. Without that reckoning, Kabimba’s charge will continue to resonate.
In a republic governed by law, defending the indefensible is not an act of loyalty. It is an assault on the very foundation of public trust.
