This feature is part of Blavity’s African Spotlight series which highlights heads of state, as well as other politicians and societal leaders, who are currently in power or influencing change on the continent. African leaders are making significant impacts both in their own countries and internationally. Growing diasporas and increasing interconnectivity make developments on the continent more relevant to Black America and people everywhere than ever before.

Hakainde Hichilema stunned Zambia and the world by winning presidential election in Zambia, unseating incumbent President Edgar Lungu. Hichilema, a 59-year-old millionaire businessman-turned-opposition party leader, had seen a long string of defeats in his political career but never gave up.

Due to two Zambian leaders dying in office, the country has had six presidential elections in the past 15 years. Hichilema has been a candidate in all of them, but had never previously won. The last three races have pitted him against Lungu, who defeated Hichilema in 2015 in order to finish the term of President Michael Sata, who succumbed to illness with a year left in his term. The following year, Lungu won a full term in office by again beating Hichilema.

Somehow, Hichilema remained undeterred.

“I will never give up on Zambia!” he tweeted in March as he ran for a sixth consecutive time.

I’ll never give up on Zambia! pic.twitter.com/dGrvF7A61Q

— Hakainde Hichilema (@HHichilema) March 17, 2021

A few days later, a leader in the ruling Patriotic Front party said of Hichilema “this time around we are not going [to] have mercy on Hakainde Hichilema, this time around we are retiring him politically.”

Instead, Hichilema won, and won big. While the BBC reports that Lungu only won the 2016 presidential election by 100,000 votes, Hichilema defeated the sitting president by one million votes in the election conducted on Aug. 12.

As improbable as this win was after so many defeats, it is only the latest in a long line of unlikely successes for Hichilema. HH, as he is called, grew up poor but earned a scholarship to the University of Zambia, where he completed a degree in economics and business before getting an MBA in the United Kingdom.

Hichilema returned to Zambia and became a successful finance executive and a savvy investor, quickly earning a fortune. Among other ventures, Hichilema became one of the largest cattle ranchers in Zambia and is a major supplier of beef to the nation. In his own words, HH presents himself as a simple “cattle boy” who turned a childhood passion for herding livestock into a business.

When Hichilema first got involved in politics, it was behind the scenes. Hichilema was a major financial backer of the United Party for National Development. The UPND opposition party was led by Hichilema’s friend, Anderson Mazoka, who had nearly won the presidency in 2001 and was taking another shot in the 2006 election. But when Mazoka suddenly died months before the election, Hichilema decided to step in, eventually winning the UPND nomination but finishing third in the election, the first of many losses.

His many defeats and clashes with Zambian presidents helped build Hichilema’s credibility among the Zambian opposition. HH likes to point out that he has been arrested 15 times under various Zambian governments for his biting criticisms and sometimes brazen opposition to those in power. The most notorious arrest came in 2017, when Hichilema’s convoy of vehicles refused to give way to President Lungu’s motorcade. The traffic incident, which the LA Times called a high-profile case of “road rage” led to Hichilema being jailed for four months on charges of treason. The case was eventually dropped, and the charges helped fuel a narrative that Zambia was drifting towards authoritarianism under Lungu.

Hichilema's years in the political wilderness also gave him time to work on his political persona. Early in his political career, HH’s youth, wealth and education were sometimes a liability, with critics accusing him of being arrogant and out of touch. In 2011, a politician from a rival party called Hichilema’s leadership “inferior, immature and childish” when compared to the deceased Muzoka. For this campaign, HH adopted a new nickname, “Bally,” a slang term for father that became popular online. “Bally will fix it” and Bally will pay” became rallying cries, with hashtags, tweets and songs across social media.

This youth-oriented approach paid off in a big way. Young voters turned out in force this election; Al-Jazeera reports that over half of voters were under 40 years old. Overall voter turnout jumped from less than 60% in 2016 to just over 70% this year, according to DW. The references to pay and fixing “it” refer to Zambia’s economy, which has been in trouble for the past decade. The price of copper, Zambia’s main export, has plummeted from its high in 2011, which was devastating to the country’s economy. COVID hit the country’s economy particularly hard; Zambia was the first country to default on its international debts during the pandemic. All of this occurred under the rule of the Patriotic Front. The vote this year was a vote against the PF and a vote for Bally as an alternative.

Zambia’s political system is also seen as needing to be fixed. President Lungu in particular was accused of corruption and authoritarian tendencies, and even initially indicated that he would reject the outcome of the election, something reminiscent of our 45th president, despite clearly losing in a landslide. Lungu quickly dropped his objection, however, and the longtime political rivals seem to be patching things up – Lungu recently posted pictures of Hichilema visiting him and the two laughing together.

If Bally has been able to turn around this relationship, perhaps he can do the same for Zambia’s political system and economy. Already, Zambia’s currency, the kwacha, gained back all the value it had lost during the past year. Bloomberg reports investors are confident that Hichilema will be able to negotiate a financial bailout for the country from the International Monetary Fund. So far, Zambian voters and international investors are in agreement: “Bally will fix it.”

Time will tell if that confidence is merited, but Hichilema has had plenty of time to prepare.

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