“Thank God Mundubile lost” – Kabimba warns Zambia could have faced civil war

22 ViewsLUSAKA — Former Justice Minister and Economic Front president Wynter Kabimba says Zambia could have descended into civil war had opposition presidential candidate Brian Mundubile and his running mate Makebi Zulu won the August 13 presidential election. Kabimba, a former PF Secretary General, said the country had potentially avoided a much more serious crisis […]

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FILE: Wynter Kabimba

LUSAKA — Former Justice Minister and Economic Front president Wynter Kabimba says Zambia could have descended into civil war had opposition presidential candidate Brian Mundubile and his running mate Makebi Zulu won the August 13 presidential election.

Kabimba, a former PF Secretary General, said the country had potentially avoided a much more serious crisis by voting against the Mundubile-Zulu ticket.

“Thank God Mundubile lost. We would have gone into a civil war as a country had he won,” Kabimba said during a post-election interview on Prime Television.

Explaining the basis of his assessment, Kabimba pointed to the political composition of the Mundubile campaign and what he described as its links to the former Patriotic Front leadership.

He argued that Mundubile and Zulu would not have had the political discipline or authority to contain the tensions that had developed around the election.

“We would probably be in a civil war today if they had won,” Kabimba said.

Kabimba said his concern was not simply about the personalities of Mundubile and Zulu, but about the political forces surrounding them and whether they would have been capable of controlling those forces once in government.

He argued that Zambians would have resisted what he viewed as a possible return to the political style associated with the PF.

“Nobody would have accepted that. People would have reacted; people would have resisted that,” he said.

Kabimba further questioned whether Mundubile and Zulu would have been sufficiently disciplined to deal with political cadres and prevent violence from escalating after the election.

His comments come at a particularly sensitive moment for Zambia, with the disputed presidential election having been followed by political tensions, arrests and the death of former minister and Tonse Pamodzi Alliance finance chairperson Mutotwe Kafwaya during a security operation at Mundubile’s residence.

The Commonwealth has since expressed concern over the post-election situation, calling for respect for human rights, due process and the release of people detained for political reasons. It has also called for a transparent investigation into the security operation in which Kafwaya died.

Kabimba’s assessment also comes as Mundubile and his alliance prepare to challenge the presidential election result in the Constitutional Court.

Mundubile has rejected the election outcome and maintained that his camp has grounds to challenge the process.

Kabimba’s remarks are likely to add to the increasingly intense debate over what Zambia’s political trajectory could have looked like under a Mundubile administration, particularly given the country’s experience with political violence and the increasingly polarised environment surrounding the election.

However, his prediction of civil war is an assessment by Kabimba and not an established outcome. The former PF secretary general did not present evidence that a Mundubile victory would necessarily have resulted in armed conflict.

His comments nonetheless underline the depth of political divisions that have emerged following the election and the competing interpretations of what the result means for Zambia’s democratic future.

A report published on the interview quoted Kabimba as saying that Mundubile and Zulu lacked the capacity to “quench that kind of disorder” and that they were not sufficiently disciplined to end political caderism.