By Editor Zambia
In recent months, Zambia has witnessed a sudden eruption of moral outrage from opposition political leaders and their aligned civic voices, an overnight coalition of critics whose message changes depending on what can most conveniently damage President Hakainde Hichilema.
First, it was the solemn funeral of former President Edgar Lungu; today, it is Bill 7. Tomorrow, it will be something else. 
But beneath these shifting arguments lies a consistent and unmistakable thread: ethnic undertones driving political mobilisation, quietly but deliberately weaponised by those who once believed they had an exclusive claim to Zambia’s political throne. That is why it is important not to stop highlighting this reality.
Without confronting this reality honestly, Zambia risks repeating cycles of selective outrage, historical amnesia, and disguised power struggles that masquerade as democratic concern.
A powerful coalition of politicians, clergy, civic leaders, academics, and traditional leaders—chiefly drawn from the historically dominant northern-eastern political belt—has rallied around a narrative that subtly questions the legitimacy of President Hichilema’s leadership.
This is not because of specific policy disagreements. It is because his presidency disrupted a long-standing expectation of dominance in national politics from 1964 to 2021.
Surprisingly, the ethnic framing is rarely spoken aloud, but it animates almost every manufactured controversy. It is a political subtext, whispered rather than declared, but unmistakable: That the presidency is “meant” to rotate within certain regions-Northern, Luapula, Muchinga, Eastern and part of Central and Copperbelt.
That criticism of the government is only legitimate when directed at leaders outside those regions-Southern, Western, and Northwestern.
That, any rising political force from the south or west regarded as Imitundu must be scrutinised, delegitimised, or branded as tribal.
The sudden discovery of “democratic conscience” among some opposition actors would be admirable, if it were not so conspicuously selective.
Understanding today’s political tension requires acknowledging the uncomfortable truth: Zambia’s political structure has long been shaped by regional blocs, sometimes subtly, sometimes explicitly. Even the celebrated breakaway that created ZANC in 1958—too often simplified as a strategic or ideological split—can not be divorced from the ethnic and regional undercurrents that influenced alliances, leadership choices, and political trust.
Poor scholarship has reduced this to tactical disagreement, when in reality, deeper identity-based anxieties were at play.
The Choma Declaration of June 1973, often described as a vehicle for national unity, also carried undertones of controlling political competition from regions seen as “others.”
Its political effect was not neutral; it subtly reinforced old hierarchies about which communities were “ready” or “safe” to lead.
These patterns persisted into the post-Chiluba and post-PF eras, where certain provinces were socially framed as automatic political power centres, while others were cast as perpetual challengers. This explains why President Hakainde Hichilema lost all the previous elections in 2006, 2008, 2011, 2015 and 2016, only winning in the 2021 presidential election with an impressive 59.02% of the vote.
The United Party for National Development (UPND) was in opposition for a record 23 years.
Thus the 2021 election represented not just a political transition but the collapse of a long-standing assumption: that Zambia’s presidency would always return to familiar regions.
That psychological shift—rather than any particular policy disagreement—is driving much of the current hostility toward President Hichilema.
Consider the selective moral panic triggered by the audio allegedly involving RTSA CEO, Eng. Amon Mweemba. Before the facts were known, a full political storm was manufactured—one far louder than reactions to similar remarks made in earlier administrations. Where was this righteous indignation when: Politicians openly mocked the idea of a Tonga president?
Senior officials implied demographic superiority as a political right?
Opposition figures used stereotypes to delegitimise political participation from certain regions?
A respected statesman like Daniel Munkombwe – MHSRIP – was demonised for making an aspirational call for political inclusivity?
The silence then, and the uproar now, reveal the same uncomfortable pattern: tribal accusation is selectively applied, weaponised against some while excused in others.
This is not a fight about ethics. It is a fight about lost political entitlement.
The post-2021 political climate has seen the resurfacing of a “them versus us” narrative.
Certain political actors portray every government move as a threat to the old regional order, reimagining Zambia as a permanent battlefield between two ethnic poles; Chambeshi and Zambezi regions.
This narrative is dangerous because it recasts normal political contestation as existential conflict. It reduces citizens to tribal avatars. It transforms democratic debate into identity warfare. It also distracts from real issues of economic reforms, good governance, youth opportunities, and national development.
Journalists who attempt to clarify the situation, offering context or challenging misinformation, are attacked not for inaccuracy but for violating the unofficial commandment: “Do not question the prevailing ethnic narrative.”
Zambia’s greatest danger is not the manufactured tribalism of today’s headlines. It is the tribalism created by refusing to acknowledge the past honestly.
Political manipulation of ethnicity—by any group, in any era—creates reactive defensiveness. It breeds mistrust. It fuels counter-narratives. Eventually, it normalises the idea that leadership must be judged through ethnic rather than national lenses.
This is precisely the trap some actors are trying to spring today: to turn grief, reform debates, institutional changes, and even constitutional amendments into ethnic battlegrounds.
Ignoring these undertones for the sake of false harmony only guarantees their growth underground.
Calling them out is not an attack on any tribe; it is a defence of national integrity.
It is, therefore, important to expose selective outrage, challenging disguised regional entitlement, highlighting political manipulation of identity and insisting that Zambian politics must rise above inherited divisions, because Zambia deserves a politics where citizens support or oppose leaders based on performance and not origin.
President Hichilema is not being targeted because of Bill 7, or funerals, or single policy decisions. He is being targeted because his presidency challenges a historical pattern of political dominance that some believed would last forever.
Until Zambia confronts this truth, opposition politics will continue to be fueled not by ideology but by identity panic.
Until this truth is acknowledged publicly, this reality must be told.
