Zambia - April 2023

Zambia’s Chief Registrar of Societies, Thandiwe Mhende, has issued a notice of her office’s intention to de-register the country’s largest opposition party, the Patriotic Front (PF). In a letter dated 25 April, Mhende wrote that the PF was to be ‘cancelled’ for its failure to comply with a legal requirement to provide a complete list of the party’s office bearers. She wrote further that the party had previously been notified by her office of this non-compliance and that it now had seven days to explain why it should not be cancelled. The PF, which governed Zambia between 2011 and 2021, denied non-compliance and alleged the notice was an attempt to suppress the political opposition and that it constituted an ‘assault on democracy.’ In 2012, the Movement for Multi-Party Democracy, another former-ruling party, was de-registered shortly after losing power to the PF.

Sources: News24, Lusaka Times, Zambian National Broadcasting Corporation, Voice of America