The dust on the outskirts of Lusaka has a particular way of coating everything. It settles on the tin roofs, turns the green of roadside maize stalks into a ghostly gray, and gets trapped deep inside the creases of a working man's palms long after the sun goes down.
In this heat, patience is not a virtue. It is a survival strategy.
For ordinary Zambians watching the political horizon shift ahead of the upcoming election, the atmosphere feels heavy with a familiar, anxious anticipation. Hakainde Hichilema stepped into the presidency in 2021 on a tidal wave of historic proportions. He carried the aspirations of a generation exhausted by economic stagnation, hyperinflation, and a creeping sense that the country’s vast mineral wealth was slipping through the fingers of its own people. He promised jobs. He promised fiscal discipline. He promised that the copper beneath their feet would finally build a future they could actually touch.
Now, the calendar turns, the campaign trails heat up, and the air crackles with a very different kind of energy. Backlash.
To understand why thousands are shifting from adoration to sharp skepticism, you have to walk down a dirt lane in compounds like Kanyama. You have to listen to the sound of children kicking a deflated plastic football past open drainage ditches. You have to look into the eyes of a mother calculating the cost of a bag of mealie meal against the copper coins left in her pocket.
Promises do not fill bellies.
When Hichilema took office, the country’s debt mountain loomed like an impossible monolith. Years of aggressive borrowing had left the treasury gasping for air. Restructuring that debt was necessary, structural adjustments were mandatory, and international lenders breathed a sigh of relief. But macroeconomics is a cold comfort to a small business owner watching the cost of fuel skyrocket at the pump. When global markets dictate local misery, the person sitting in State House becomes the lightning rod for every bolt of frustration.
It is a tragedy of modern democracy. The reformer inherits a collapsing house, spends precious years reinforcing the foundation, and gets blamed by the residents for the dust falling on their heads during construction.
Consider the copper mines. Zambia holds some of the world's finest deposits of the metal that powers the modern electric transition. For decades, the narrative has remained stubbornly identical. The wealth is extracted, shipped across oceans, and returned to us as finished goods we can barely afford. Hichilema campaigned on revitalizing this sector, aiming for ambitious production targets that would flood the national coffers with cash. Yet, turning an oil tanker around in a narrow canal takes time. Bureaucratic inertia, legal disputes over ownership, and global price fluctuations conspired to slow the grand vision to a crawl.
And in that lag between promise and reality, impatience breeds political friction.
Political opponents smell blood in the water. They circle the rallies, amplifying the grievances of youth unemployment and the high cost of living. They point fingers at the administration's slow-moving machinery. They ask the question every tired voter asks when standing in line at the ballot box: Are you better off than you were yesterday?
For many, the answer is a complicated, painful no.
Walk through the central markets and you will hear the whispers turn into outright arguments. People are not inherently ungrateful. They remember the democratic opening that came with the change of power. They remember the sudden easing of political intimidation on the streets, the freedom to speak without looking over one's shoulder. Those gains are real. They matter deeply.
Freedom, however, does not pay school fees.
This is the tightrope walk of African governance today. Leaders are expected to perform miracles within a single constitutional term, balancing the rigid demands of Western financial institutions with the visceral, immediate needs of a youthful population that has completely run out of patience. The average age in Zambia hovers around seventeen years old. Millions of young citizens have known nothing but economic struggle. They do not care about debt restructuring deals signed in boardrooms thousands of miles away. They want a job. They want a spark of economic dignity.
When that spark fails to catch fire, the backlash is swift, fierce, and entirely unforgiving.
The upcoming election is not merely a contest between competing political parties. It is a referendum on the very nature of democratic patience. Can a nation wait for long-term structural reforms while short-term survival grows increasingly desperate?
As twilight falls over the capital, the silhouette of the city skyline cuts sharply against a bruised orange sky. Somewhere down below, a radio crackles with campaign speeches, competing voices shouting promises over the static. The dust settles back down onto the road. The people wait, listening closely, holding the power of their ballots like unlit matches in the dark, wondering who will finally strike the flame.
