By EditorZambia
ZAMBIA likes to see itself as a peaceful democracy, a country that argues fiercely at the ballot box but returns to civility once votes are counted.
That comforting narrative, however, collapses under the weight of history. 
Political violence at the highest and most visible levels did not arrive by accident. It had a beginning, a location, and identifiable actors. That beginning was Chawama.
The Chawama parliamentary by-election of July 2001 marked a dark turning point in Zambia’s multiparty era.
When the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) candidate, Lindon Mfungwe, lost the seat, the country witnessed something unprecedented: organised cadres unleashing violence with machetes, guns, stones and fire. It was the first-time ordinary Zambians saw political competition descend into raw, weaponised thuggery in broad daylight, with national leaders present and implicated.
Following the by-election won by Geoffrey Samukonga of the then newly formed Forum for Democracy and Development, violence erupted in Chawama township. Supporters of the ruling party clashed with residents and opposition supporters. Vehicles were burned, people were seriously injured, vote counting was suspended, and police fired live ammunition and tear gas to restore order.
Chawama was effectively sealed off from the rest of Lusaka for hours. This was not a village scuffle or a rumour inflated by social media; it was a national crisis reported by international wire agencies.
Crucially, witnesses pointed to the role of senior party officials who arrived in the township shortly after voting ended.
The facts are well documented. Michael Chilufya Sata was the MMD national secretary at the time, and the panga incident was directly attributed to him.
When it became clear that the ruling party had lost, cadres armed with machetes and other weapons went on the rampage. That moment shattered the illusion that Zambia’s political elite would always restrain their supporters. The genie was out of the bottle.
What followed in subsequent years was not an aberration but a pattern. The culture of cadre violence, once introduced, found a new and more permanent home in the Patriotic Front (PF).
Under Michael Chilufya Sata’s leadership, the party did not merely tolerate violence; it embraced it as a political tool. Cadres became shock troops, settling scores at bus stations, markets, and party offices.
In PF, machetes were no longer shocking symbols of breakdown; they became familiar accessories of political muscle.
When Edgar Chagwa Lungu, whose political base was Chawama, took over, the problem or armed violence did not disappear. Instead, it hardened into a signature of the PF brand. Violence was normalised, justified, and sometimes even celebrated.
Attacks on opposition members, especially the UPND, journalists, and civil society, were explained away as “overexcitement” or blamed on provocation.
Within the party itself, rival factions used intimidation and physical force to assert dominance. What began in Chawama as a reaction to electoral loss had evolved into a governing culture.This is why it is dishonest to pretend that the PF violence is accidental or imported. It was learned behaviour.
Once a political party discovers that brutality brings results and carries no lasting consequences, it stops seeing it as wrong. It becomes routine. That is the tragedy of the PF: it took wrong things and adopted them as the norm.
The current spectacle surrounding the death of former President Edgar Lungu exposes this moral vacuum even further. Figures like Makebi Zulu, a PF blue-eyed boy now widely nicknamed “malukula-embalmer,” have turned mourning into theatre. Together with Given Lubinda, they are squeezing cheap political mileage out of a body that has not even been properly laid to rest.
Lubinda’s act of composing a song themed on Lungu’s death to win public sympathy and wailing louder than genuine mourners, despite the fact that he has never even seen the body he claims to grieve for, will not work.
Lubinda will not get the sympathy vote he is seeking in Chawama because his action is not a display of respect; it is exploitation. It is the same politics that uses violence to win elections, but now uses grief to rehabilitate reputations.
The absence of shame in the PF faction leadership is striking. Even death is reduced to a campaign prop.
Zambia deserves better. It deserves leaders who learn from history instead of repeating its worst chapters.
Chawama should have been a national lesson, a moment when political parties collectively said, “Never again.” Instead, it became a blueprint.
Until political leaders openly acknowledge this lineage of violence and decisively break from it, the country will remain vulnerable to its return.
Peace is not maintained by slogans or selective memory. It is protected by accountability and moral clarity.
Chawama taught us what happens when leaders fail on both counts. The question is whether Zambia has finally learned that lesson or whether it will continue to pretend that machetes appeared from nowhere.
