The KBN TV editorial on the Kasama mayoral by-election is less of an objective analysis and more of a projection of the writer’s political expectations and wishes. You can access their editorial via this link:https://www.facIt begins from a desired conclusion, that the ruling party should have lost, and then works backwards to justify that belief. The central hypothesis advanced in the article that a united opposition fielding one candidate, would have automatically defeated UPND, is both speculative and intellectually weak.
Here is why ? First of all, the assumption that votes cast for different opposition parties are transferable is fundamentally flawed. Voters are not commodities that can be pooled and reassigned at will.
Those who voted for CF, UPPZ, SP, or any other party did so for different and personal reasons, ranging from ideological alignment and candidate appeal to protest voting, historical loyalty, or outright rejection of both UPND and FDD. To automatically assume that these voters would have rallied behind a single opposition candidate is not only incorrect, but also dismissive of the intelligence of the people of Kasama. Secondly, the editorial conveniently ignores a critical political reality in Zambian politics called “voter apathy”.
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The crop of voters we have today is very different from the one Pastor Kennedy Mambwe, the owner of KBN TV, was born into. Today’s voters are more enlightened and more discerning. They know exactly what they want.
Their voting choices are driven by preference, and when their preferred candidate is not on the ballot, many consciously choose to abstain rather than vote blindly. For such voters, a “united opposition” could just as easily have reduced turnout or driven them to abstain, rather than consolidating votes. History has also shown that voter apathy often favours the ruling party.
Thirdly, while the article correctly states that UPND mobilised heavily and took the election seriously, it contradicts itself by later downplaying that same mobilisation and attributing the outcome mainly to opposition fragmentation. You see, Elections are not won in theory. They are won through organisation, ground presence, voter mobilisation, and most importantly, message resonance.On this score, UPND clearly outperformed its competitors.
The combination of Elvis Nkandu, Chipoka Mulenga, Paul Kabuswe, Levy Ngoma, and Elias Mubanga went into Kasama with a message centred on CDF, free education, peace and development. Something that resonated well with the voters. While the other camp went in with divisive campaign messages of regionalism and character assassination.
The kind of politics that the youths, who form the majority of voters, have decisively rejected. Moreover, the repeated comparison of the combined opposition tally against the UPND vote is a post-election arithmetic exercise, not political science. Adding up opposition tallies after the fact, does not explain how people would have voted under a different political arrangement.
If they did, coalition politics would be far simpler than it actually is. The article also attempts to absolve itself from regional bias by stating “stop blaming northerners,” yet paradoxically keeps returning to regional voting narratives. Somehow, the article seems to suggest that the people of Kasama would have voted along regional lines had the opposition united, again, an insult to the intelligence of the people of Kasama.
The truth is that Kasama voters made independent choices, and those choices delivered a winner. There is no moral or democratic obligation for voters to align their preferences to suit opposition arithmetic.
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