The term-limits storm: Tayali wants the ceiling scrapped — civil society says don't you dare

It began as a provocation and is becoming a test. Chilufya Tayali's call for the presidential term limit to be scrapped — he described the ten-year ceiling as retrogressive — has detonated a national argument barely a month into President Hichilema's second term.

The response has been swift and loud. Civil rights activist Brebner Changala and governance campaigner Mulenga Kapwepwe have separately warned the UPND against nurturing a third-term agenda. Democratic Progressive Party leader Antonio Mwanza put it bluntly: Zambians will not accept a third term or a one-party state. The Christian Opposition Forum has demanded the President personally commit to upholding the limit, while Brian Mushimba warned against removing it altogether.

Complicating the picture: voices inside the ruling party itself. A senior UPND figure argued this week that "we can choose to remove the presidential term limit" — a remark the opposition has seized on as proof the idea is live within government, not merely a Tayali solo project.

"Reject any scheme to personalise the constitution." — Dr Akashambatwa Mbikusita-Lewanika, veteran constitutionalist

The context makes this flammable. The amended constitution's new architecture already delivered the UPND a dominant parliament; Bill 7's afterlife remains unresolved; and a president seeking a third term would need precisely the constitutional route critics fear. State House has said nothing — and in a debate like this, silence is read as a position.

Lusaka Brief's view of the facts: the two-term limit stands; no bill to amend it exists; but the conversation has now been launched, and how the President addresses it will define the early politics of term two.