Lungu’s challenge to HH for 2026

By Daily Revelation Editor 

The Edgar Lungu eligibility case is now well and truly on.

The country has been treated to public debate occasioned by the action by President Hakainde Hichilema to suspend three Constitutional Court judges, barely 48 hours before the same eligibility was to start.

Lungu argued that the decision had been taken by Hichilema in order to disadvantage him. He further protested against the three Constitutional Court judges – ConCourt President Judge Margaret Munalula, Vice-President Arnold Shilimi and Judge Mapani Kawimbe – who were going to hear his petition, accusing them of being conflicted and that they should therefore recuse themselves from hearing the matter. As is now public knowledge, the judges provided their responses yesterday, that they would not recuse themselves from handling the matter, and provided their own explanations for the same.

Two days prior to that judgement, Lungu had challenged Hichilema for a rematch in 2026. In saying so, Lungu told Hichilema that if he had failed to address challenges or fulfil his campaign promises, at least he should take the price of fuel to where he found it, including fertilizer, mealie-meal, cooking oil and the Kwacha. At the time of Hichilema’s takeover of power, the price of fuel was K17, fertiliser around K700 per 50kg bags, mealie-meal K130, the Kwacha was K17 to US$1. The same now is going at over K32 for fuel, over K330 mealie-meal, while the Kwacha is at over K26.7 to US$1 among other variables that have contributed towards the rising cost of living.

Truly, Lungu was not a perfect president and he messed up a lot, and according to the way things were going at the time, deserved to be voted out. The people’s expectations were especially sky high following the many promises Hichilema gave to the people. He promised that the failures the people had seen in Lungu were going to be a thing of the past as he would offer impeccable leadership which Zambians had never seen before. Actually, from the time Hichilema started running for Republican president in this country in 2006, he always denounced all the leaders he ran against as not being up to his standard. All of them, Levy Mwanawasa, Rupiah Banda, Michael Sata, and Edgar Lungu were no match to the kind of leadership Hichilema said he was going to offer to Zambians. He prayed that he could one day be given the opportunity to run the country so that the people could see what real leadership looked like.

Well, he is President now. And we can safely say that the same challenges the country faced during all the presidencies he denounced are still in existence even now. We hope and pray that he can use the two years he’s remained with to address the many promises he has not lived up to thus far. Anyone  praying and hoping against him from succeeding is an enemy of this Republic. No patriot would wish for Hichilema to fail actually. But he must be true to his promises rather than blaming the PF every time he fails to live up to his lofty promises.

And we are very sure that if he is really confident about his time in office, he will not mind competing against anyone for the presidency in 2026, that he will undertake to ensure that whoever wants to compete for the Republican presidency against him will do so unfettered in anyway.