Roots of Contemporary Political Strategies: Ethno-Populism in Zambia during the Late Colonial Era and Early 2000s

Abstract

Much scholarly work on politics in Zambia during the early 2000s stresses the role of populist mobilisations and the exploitation of ethnic language identities when explaining one of the main political developments of this period – the growing popularity of Michael Sata and his opposition party, the Patriotic Front. A common limitation of these studies is their narrow focus on the immediate context as the source of political populism and ethnic strategy. Drawing on interviews and archival and newspaper sources, this article interprets the later actions of Sata within the context of the past and demonstrates that the nature and style of the political strategies that he employed in the early 2000s were rooted in his experiences in late colonial Zambia, when he learnt the benefits of identifying oneself in ethnic language terms and engaging in worker mobilisations that were populist in character. The reappearance of ethnic and populist strategies in the early 2000s reflects a deeper connection to the past and demonstrates the long shadow of late colonial influences on contemporary Zambian politics. It also challenges the dominant periodisation in Zambian political history by drawing significant connections between different historical eras and showing how lessons learnt in one period were replicated in recognisable form in later periods.