…President Hichilema Poised 2026 general elections

Lusaka, Zambia – May 20, 2025

Former presidential press aide Amos Chanda has reaffirmed his stance that President Hakainde Hichilema is on track to win the 2026 general election, brushing off criticism from the opposition Patriotic Front (PF) as politically insecure and intellectually dishonest.

He also dismissed PF claims that the UPND should not take credit for infrastructure projects initiated under their administration. Mr. Chanda insisted that government is a continuous entity, not owned by any single party.

“To argue that UPND must keep off these projects until PF returns is delusional,” he said. “Governance is a national duty, not a partisan reward.”

In a parting shot, Chanda questioned PF’s obsession with his remarks, noting that their reaction confirms his relevance in the national discourse.

“I have no elected office, yet I seem to be one of the PF’s biggest concerns,” he said. “This only reinforces the truth of what I said: President Hichilema, at this point, has no obvious rival.”

BELOW IS MR. CHANDA’S STATEMENT, AS MONITORED BY THE UPND MEDIA TEAM.

“During an interview on Diamond TV last Wednesday, I responded to question from the presenter who asked me about the 2026 chances of the Opposition versus the incumbent president.

I projected a possible win for the President HH because in my assessment, I just can’t see to whom he can lose as things stand.

In fact, I was hypothetical in my response and named no possible loser(s). This Patriotic Front (PF) statement seems to know more than I do about who this loser(s).

In this “PF Media Directorate” statement, the authors allege I am insulting Zambians by exercising my freedom of expression on who I think will win the 2026 elections.

Yet if these authors were to project any of the ten PF presidential candidates as a possible winner, I won’t characterise such an opinion as an insult to those like me, who believe differently.

This kind of reasoning by the PF is illiberal and therefore undesirable in a free and democratic society that Zambia is.

Freedom of expression is simply being able to dislike what another person is saying yet standing firm to protect the right of that person to say what you don’t like.

I will ignore the rest of the personally disagreeable and demeaning language in the article but state that only that nowhere in the TV interview did I say my single view would represent the views of 20 million Zambians.

Political parties will pass as many times as the people may decide, but Government does not. It is immutable, almost always invariably, inviolable, and therefore permanently rooted in the collective ownership of the people.

Government, simply welcomes administrations, not itself. Its very character is continuity.

To suggest therefore, as this PF statement has done, that those projects conceived during its tenure must wait upon their second coming, is not just delusional but a stark verdict of their failure at understanding of the very idea of government.

If that reasoning were to prevail, what then would have happened to the projects UNIP, our party of independence left when they were soundly defeated in 1991?

What about projects inherited by the PF from the MMD?

As I end my response, I return to the hypothetical question I asked during the Diamond TV interview: to whom would HH lose if elections were held tomorrow?

I dare stress: I did not name the potential loser(s) in the above question. It seems this PF Media Directorate statement has assigned themselves this slot!

At the 2021 poll, there were 16 presidential candidates. It does look like there will be more than one next year. Does this rattling tell us something about the political psyche within the former ruling party?”

©️ UPND Media Team