Why Antonio Mourinho Mwanza peers formed Democratic Party for Progress DPP – Zambia ?

By Antonio Mourinho Mwanza
Democratic party for Progress (DPP) President
Wednesday, 18th February 2026

For 61 years after independence, our nation has stood tall in peace — but too often small in politics.

Our politics has become narrow where it should be visionary. Petty where it should be profound. Loud where it should be thoughtful. We have mastered the art of attacking one another, yet we have neglected the duty of building our nation.

We debate personalities instead of policies. We trade insults instead of ideas. We mobilize anger instead of mobilizing opportunity.

And while we fight each other, the real battles go unattended.

Who is speaking, seriously and consistently, about ending youth unemployment — not with slogans, but with structured industrial policy, entrepreneurship financing, and skills reform?
Who is demanding meaningful tax relief for small businesses from the Zambia Revenue Authority so that compliance does not become punishment?
Who is confronting the high cost of doing business — the fuel prices, the cascading levies, the regulatory burden that suffocates innovation before it can breathe?

Who is ensuring that when copper leaves our soil, prosperity remains in our communities?

We are a nation blessed beyond measure. We sit on copper, gold, cobalt, fertile land, vast water bodies. Yet our young people graduate into uncertainty. Our small businesses operate in survival mode. Our families lie awake at night under the weight of financial strain. Mental health struggles rise quietly in homes where hope should live loudly.

How is it that countries with fewer natural endowments have surged ahead?

Singapore transformed from vulnerability to global competitiveness through discipline, education, and long-term planning.
United Arab Emirates turned desert sands into global hubs of trade and innovation.
Japan, with limited natural resources, invested relentlessly in human capital and technology and built one of the world’s most advanced economies.

They invested in education.
They invested in health.
They invested in infrastructure.
They invested in innovation.

And they chose seriousness over spectacle.

Meanwhile, here at home, we are still grappling with poverty, youth unemployment, recurring cholera outbreaks, high cost of living, and the painful reality that even contracts financed by our own taxes too often bypass our own contractors.

This is not a condemnation of our country. It is a call to elevate it.

One of the deepest problems in our politics is this:
When you are in government, you are expected to defend everything — even what is indefensible.
When you are in opposition, you are expected to oppose everything — even what makes sense.

If you support a good idea across the aisle, you are called a sellout.
If you criticize wrongdoing within your own ranks, you are labeled a traitor.

And so independent thinking dies. Conscience becomes suspicious. Tribal loyalty replaces national vision.

This is small politics.
This is backward politics.
And Zambia deserves better.

That is why we chose a different path. That is why we formed the Democratic Party of Progress (DPP).

We did not enter politics to echo the noise. We entered politics to change the conversation.

We believe politics must be about issues — about jobs, about agriculture that feeds us and exports beyond us, about an education system that produces innovators rather than job-seekers alone, about a healthcare system that preserves dignity, about water and sanitation systems that prevent disease before it becomes a yearly tragedy.

We believe small businesses are not tax targets; they are growth engines.
We believe youth are not statistics; they are the architects of our future.
We believe our mines must benefit our people not only as labourers, but as shareholders in prosperity.

Yes, we belong to different parties.
Yes, we come from different tribes and provinces.
Yes, we worship in different churches and speak different languages.

But we are one people.

We are farmers and miners.
Teachers and traders.
Entrepreneurs and civil servants.
Parents trying to build something better than what we inherited.

Let us be the generation that matures our democracy.
Let us move from personality to policy.
From tribe to nation.
From noise to solutions.

Let us demand leadership that is thoughtful, disciplined, and accountable.
Let us build an economy that rewards productivity, innovation, and enterprise.
Let us invest in our children so that 20 years from now, the world will point to Zambia not as a country of potential — but as a country of performance.

The politics of bitterness will not build roads.
The politics of insults will not create jobs.
The politics of division will not reduce the cost of mealie meal, reduce the cost of fuel, reduce cost of healthcare, reduce youth unemployment.

But the politics of ideas will.
The politics of unity will.
The politics of courage will.

The choice before us is not ruling party versus opposition.
It is stagnation versus progress.
It is fear versus vision.
It is small politics versus nation-building.

Zambia is too rich to remain poor.
Too blessed to remain divided.
Too capable to remain complacent.

The time has come to grow up politically.
The time has come to build seriously.
The time has come to focus on what matters.

And the time is now.

Antonio Mourinho Mwanza
Democratic Party for Progress (DPP) President
Wednesday, 18 – 02 – 26