By Twinks Gadama
Before he joined the UTM, Dalitso Kabambe was DPP. A blue-blooded DPP.
His only drive into politics was not service. It was presidential ambition. He did not toil through the party file and rank before he would advance the highest ambition. He wanted to jump from Reserve Bank Governor to State House.
When it became clear to him that he would not make it at the DPP’s elective conference, coincided with the death of UTM President, Saulos Chilima, Kabambe saw an opportunity for a stepfather. _Kulowa kufa._
He looked at Chilima’s 2019 one million votes. He looked at a fleet of UTM vehicles crisscrossing cities and suburbs. He had read Sattar stories in relation to Chilima and thought politics is a gold mine. The suitor saw gold.
He came to UTM not to mourn Chilima, but to inherit and swallow the UTM wholesome.
He pushed out the real UTM children – the loyalists who built UTM from scratch – and used money to become an heir.
However, the September 16 election results were the blunt truth that he was not Chilima’s match.
Chilima got 1 million votes. Kabambe got 200,000. A fifth of the inheritance went in one election.
And the ultimate humiliation came from home. In his own Thyolo Masambanjati, his own blood rejected him. He finished a distant fifth with a meager 1,000 votes out of 19,000 – beaten badly by a political novice, DPP’s Favour Kastomu.
If your own village says “we don’t want you as MP,” how can the nation want you as President?
Now bitter, broke and embarrassed, Kabambe is paying the price of _kulowa kufa_. He invested millions chasing a shadow, mortgaging property to buy a party that had no soul left after Chilima died.
He came for gold. He is living with debts, court cases, and a party that is now a briefcase.
Lesson: Chamwini nchamwini. You cannot inherit charisma.
