PRESIDENT Hakainde Hichilema’s State of the Nation Address to Parliament was more than a constitutional formality. It was a forensic dissection of political inconsistency. Calm, methodical and anchored in constitutionalism.
The President used the national platform not merely to account for governance, but to expose a glaring contradiction at the heart of the opposition politics.
The hypocrisy is now impossible to ignore.
When Bill 7, the then proposed constitutional amendment, which, among other provisions, sought to facilitate constituency delimitation was tabled before the National Assembly, a bloc of opposition members of Parliament voted against it. They wrapped their resistance in lofty rhetoric: defence of democracy, protection of procedure, suspicion of motive. The language was dramatic. The vote was decisive.Yet today, those same political actors are reportedly scrambling to position themselves for parliamentary seats that only exist because of the very delimitation framework they rejected. 
This is not mere political irony. It is a question of integrity.
The Logic They Cannot Escape
Delimitation is not a cosmetic exercise. It is a structural correction designed to address disparities in representation. Zambia’s population has shifted, urban constituencies have ballooned, and some rural areas remain underrepresented. Rational redistribution of constituencies is therefore not partisan indulgence; it is democratic housekeeping.
If delimitation was so fundamentally flawed as to warrant outright rejection, why the sudden enthusiasm to benefit from its fruits?One cannot vote against the tree and then rush to harvest its shade.
The president, without resorting to theatrics, made this contradiction clear. Governance requires coherence. Political credibility demands consistency. One can not oppose a legislative mechanism in Parliament and then quietly prepare nomination papers to exploit its outcomes.
Political Theatre Versus Principle
Opposition politics plays an essential role in any democracy. Scrutiny strengthens institutions. Debate sharpens policy. But obstruction for its own sake corrodes public trust.
The refusal to support Bill 7 was presented as an act of principle. Yet principle is tested not only in speeches and votes but in subsequent conduct. If those who rejected the Bill are now manoeuvring for seats created through delimitation, then their earlier resistance appears less like conviction and more like calculation.
Zambians are not naïve. They understand disagreement. What they resent is duplicity.
The President’s Strategic Framing
In his address, the President Hichilema positioned delimitation within the broader democratic evolution of the Republic. He framed it as a necessary response to demographic realities, not a partisan manoeuvre. By doing so, he shifted the debate from political suspicion to constitutional necessity.
This matters. For years, successive administrations have acknowledged the imbalance in constituency sizes. Reform delayed is representation denied. By advancing the conversation in a national forum, the Head of State has effectively forced clarity upon the political class.
Those who voted “No” must now explain why they are eager to contest “Yes”.
A Question of Political Memory
Democracies depend on institutional memory and on voters who remember. It is no longer sufficient for politicians to assume that yesterday’s parliamentary vote will be forgotten by tomorrow’s campaign trail.
The electorate is watching. If delimitation is legitimate enough to contest under, it was legitimate enough to support. If it was illegitimate, then political morality demands abstention from its benefits.
There is no middle ground between conviction and convenience.
The Verdict Beyond Parliament
Ultimately, the State of the Nation Address did more than outline economic indicators and developmental milestones. It exposed a credibility gap within segments of the opposition politics. The President did not need to accuse; the record speaks for itself.
The coming electoral cycle will test more than party machinery. It will test coherence. Voters will weigh words against actions, speeches against voting records, and principles against opportunism.
In politics, consistency is currency. Yesterday, in Parliament, that currency was sharply audited. Some accounts did not balance.
