“Lies Have Short Legs”: Fact-Checking and Debunking Campaign Lies

By Mark Simuuwe

The contrast in terms of policy content and accuracy of what is said during the 2026 political campaign rallies between the campaigns of President Hakainde Hichilema and his opponent Brian Mundubile is as clear as night and day. While the former has a measured and well-articulated policy message on agriculture, education, fiscal management, maintenance of freedoms, public security, infrastructural development and national unity, the latter’s is either based on parroting the President’s or telling lies.

This article is meant to fact-check the lies from these campaigns to prevent voter disinformation and to realign voter evaluation of candidates with factual information. These articles are not meant to be long and windy academic writings but short and concise pieces for the electorate. In a well-developed version of a democracy, voters need credible sources of information to base their suffrage exercise on.

So, today we will address two important questions: who brought about or introduced Zambia’s cyber laws? And who started the free education policy? We ask the first question because Mr Mundubile’s running mate, Makebi Zulu (also infamously known as “Malukula” in some social media circles), has been heard at campaign rallies alleging that President Hichilema’s government introduced cyber laws in the country. That is false and deliberate disinformation intended to brainwash some unsuspecting voters and lead them away from an objective assessment of this year’s presidential candidates.

Here is what is correct. On 23 March 2021, President Edgar Lungu, then President of the Republic of Zambia, signed into law the Cyber Security and Cyber Crimes Act, 2021. This law was vehemently opposed by the opposition, church and religious leaders, and civil society organisations. It was intended to muzzle the opposition and dissenting voices of Zambians in the run-up to the 2021 general elections which, despite such hurried moves, President Lungu and his unpopular and corrupt government lost abysmally.

Well, why then did President Hichilema and his government not repeal the law? They did. The Patriotic Front (PF) cyber law was repealed by the United Party for National Development (UPND) government because it was bad law. Instead, and in keeping with international practice in civilised democracies, President Hichilema’s government modernised the law, enacting the Cyber Security Act, 2025 (Act No. 3 of 2025) and the Cyber Crimes Act, 2025 (Act No. 4 of 2025) on 8 April 2025. Progressive cyber laws exist even in advanced democracies like the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and South Africa.

We can go into the details of the differences between the PF law and the UPND law to determine the poison with which the 2021 law was laced, but this is not the space for that. The point is, Makebi Zulu is lying through his teeth to the face of voters about who introduced cyber laws in Zambia. What Mr Zulu and his team are unhappy about is that the current law prohibits tribal hate speech, the major political capital and raison d’être of their organisation.

With its rich diversity of cultural heritages and ethnic identities, Zambia cannot afford to allow people to use tribal and ethnic hate speech to marginalise people who cannot defend themselves through cyber space. In other democracies such as the United Kingdom or Canada, hate speech (for example, based on race, or gender and sexual identity) is regulated by similar cyber laws and could lead to serious prison sentences.

The PF, now masquerading as a new political outfit dubbed the National Reconciliation Party for Unity and Prosperity (NRPUP), is, to be brutally honest, an organisation that thrived on divisive tribal talk and hatred, corruption, nepotism, violence and lawlessness. Africa is replete with examples of heinous crimes, including ethnic cleansing, that resulted from divisive ethnic and tribal talk. With the emergence of social media and convenient cyber spaces, coupled with the political appetite by such organisations to weaponise ethnic identities, unabated ethnic and tribal hate speech could spread like wildfire and consume our beautiful country and plunge us into untold chaos. One more year of that gang at the helm of Zambian governance would have left Zambia unrecognisable and in the abyss of chaos.

The second question doesn’t deserve much time to address. When Mr Mundubile “accused” Mr David Mabumba of having introduced the free education policy, the ex-minister himself appeared unflattered and confused. Many Zambians remember Mr Mabumba was a good education minister who, unfortunately, damaged his reputation by wagging his private parts to a supposedly young girl through a leaked social media video. So, no, the PF did not start any free education policy nor did they set any groundwork for the UPND’s eventual launch of the policy. On the contrary, they introduced bad education policies, including the removal of meal allowances for university students, which the UPND government reversed.

While we appreciate the infancy of the new brand for the party, as it should be in a democracy, Mundubile and Zulu belong to a political establishment that has existed for many years, and we expect them to have a semblance of decency and civility in their political messaging. We also understand that they still command a very diminished portion of their 2021 one million voters, but lies will not get them too far in this campaign. Mundubile and Zulu were active members of the Lungu PF government that shoveled a harmful cyber law down the throats of Zambians. They are liars.