Patali Raphael

This debate is just stupid...

This conversation about a third term for the President is dangerous, guys. We must be very careful not to play around with our laws simply because we like where we are with certain individuals in positions of power. Two terms maximum, then we move on. African leaders must learn this lesson quickly instead of trying to bend the rules in the name of love. Whether the young people in Parliament are speaking of their own accord or pushing a hidden agenda fed to them by those in higher places, let’s pause and think. When we have a great leader, it may seem like a good idea to create provisions that allow them to serve beyond the two-term limit. But that same provision could plunge our society into darkness when a tyrant or someone with evil intentions gets hold of that very power. Let’s be careful. Let’s not get carried away. Young people, focus on the real issues confronting Zambian youth. We have young people falling into crime, getting trapped in cycles of sex, drugs and alcohol, human trafficking and prostitution. We have teenage pregnancies, sexual and gender-based violence, and countless other issues that demand urgent intervention from leaders who understand the realities of today’s generation. Let’s not forget cybercrime and its impact on young people. When you enter the House of Lawmakers, don’t behave as though these issues are less important than creating provisions that could extend your favourite politician’s stay in power beyond the maximum two-term limit. It raises serious questions about where your loyalties lie. Is it with the people who put you in those positions, or with ordinary Zambians across all ten provinces? Cut this third-term talk now!

We don’t manufacture votes; if your harvest is poor that’s what you get – ECZ By Elijah Munkombwe THE Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) has advised political parties to recruit honest polling agents during elections, saying the Commission is often “unfairly” accused of stealing votes for candidates after results are announced. ECZ Commissioner McDonald Chipenzi says the Commission does not manufacture votes but only counts them, stressing that if diggers.news/local/2026/11/0… Read more @ Diggers.News

Inflation has come down significantly. Foreign exchange reserves have strengthened. Debt restructuring has made substantial progress. Economic growth is projected to accelerate. Our kwacha is no longer free falling too

This is what we call fear of unknown, no substance just speculation

nitter.gq/ssishuwa/status/200052… There are two major political processes or developments that are happening quietly and simultaneously in Zambia at the moment. The first is the executive-driven dismantling of the formal guardrails and norms that have long kept executive power in check, and whose weakening risks eroding public trust in democracy and the use of the ballot as the best mechanism of changing governments. The constitution has been repeatedly flouted, parliament now serves as an extension of the executive, much of civil society and elements of the private media are co-opted, opposition parties have been crippled, the courts are subservient to the executive on all political cases in which the president has an interest, and elections are increasingly meaningless. The president has carried out this destruction of the vestiges of autonomy in all state institutions outside the executive arm of government with considerable ease, impunity, and skill (albeit of a criminal variety), for the purposes of establishing an authoritarian regime and a slide into a fearful dictatorship. The second is the systematic and carefully planned capture of the state by elites from one half of the country — what I call the Zambezi region — who now occupy key roles in the leadership of the executive, judiciary, legislature, electoral commission, security forces, public universities, civil service, police, and other alternative sources of authority and power. At the heart of this ethnic-regional agenda or vision in motion is the pervasive belief, shared by many of the Zambezi elites, that “our real enemies are Bembas and easterners and we should do whatever we can, now that we are in charge of government, to lock them out of State power while using some of them as useful idiots”. The passage of Bill 7, the gerrymandering that took place recently through delimitation, the ongoing eleventh-hour changes to the electoral law, the forthcoming electoral exclusion of relatively stronger rivals to the president (using the captured courts, the Registrar of Societies, and the electoral commission, and secret deals with some opposition candidates who are plants of the State and won’t be on the ballot as a result), and the unexplained secret recruitment of people who may be ruling party supporters for training as police officers (these may later be deployed as “polling agents” or “returning officers”), are all part of this long-term strategy to capture the State. The immediate objectives? To win the forthcoming election by any means, create a defacto one party state, and then move to change the Constitution to either remove or extend presidential term limits, or abolish the presidential vote so that the president is chosen by MPs (meaning the ruling party since Zambia will be a one party state except in designation) rather than directly by the people. Sadly, many Zambians will only see what is happening now long after the fact. It saddens me greatly to see what is happening to the country and how the educated elites have betrayed the common people for both short term personal gains and narrow ethnic-regional agendas. As the 2023 article below illustrates, one that was at the time challenged by the Zambezi elites, I have spent the last few years trying to sound alarm at these two processes or developments but have often been misunderstood. africanarguments.org/2023/06… One day, many will come to understand what I meant when, immediately after the passage of Bill 7, I wrote that “Well, it's now official. The Zambia that we knew is gone. We lost it today. To suicide. The coming era will be a long dark road. You may not understand now, but one day, you will.” Let time. Many things make themselves clear in the fullness of time.

The people have decided, that's why they voted. You are just 1 out of over 20 million people, the people have decided. I didn't support it either. Nothing is cast in stone, the constitution can be amended, just as what's happening. So no need to be sensational about it ba sir!