Zambian president did not call Zimbabwean officials’ behaviour an ‘abnormality’

"Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema has hit back at Zimbabwean officials who have been ranting and raving attacking him over a Sadc (sic) Election Observer Mission report which condemned the recent shambolic polls as neither free, fair nor credible," reads the post published on X (formerly Twitter) on September 10, 2023.

The acronym "Sadc" refers to the Southern African Development Community, a regional bloc of 16 member states including Zambia. A SADC team of observers reported a number of concerns with Zimbabwe’s August election, saying it "fell short" of the requirements laid out by the country’s constitution.

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Screenshot of the false post on X, taken on September 14, 2023

In a video accompanying the X post, Hichilema is heard saying: "On economic integration, enhancing growth in our individual economies, regional and African economy, Madam Speaker, Zambia is part of the pack of nations, civilised nations. Calling each other names, when we are solving a problem created by colleagues, and the names are being called by those who created the problem, is not logical, it is not normal. It is called an abnormality."

The post was published by The News Hawks, a Zimbabwean investigative news outlet with more than 80,000 followers on the X platform.

The same claim was also repeated in another X post. However, a user explained in the replies that the video was taken out of context, for which the original poster thanked them.

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A screenshot of the comments, taken on September 14, 2023

The same claim was also shared on TikTok, including here and here.

SADC report

Nevers Mumba, the former vice president of Zambia, headed the group of SADC regional observers deployed for Zimbabwe's election held on August 23 and 24, 2023. He was appointed to this role by Hichilema, who is part of the SADC leadership (archived here).

Mumba presented the scathing SADC report (archived here). It cited numerous concerns, including banning opposition rallies, issues with the voter registration rolls, biased state media coverage and voter intimidation.

As reported by AFP, this was a rare rebuke from the bloc whose observers usually endorse polls in its member countries (archived here).

Zimbabwe’s ruling ZANU-PF party accused the monitors of interfering with the country's electoral laws (archived here).

Zimbabwe’s then-information minister Nick Mangwana also published a series of tweets criticising the regional observers after their report, including here and here (archived here and here).

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Screenshots of posts by Nick Mangwana on X, taken on September 14, 2023

What did Hichilema say?

In the replies to one of the X posts, a user who said the clip had been taken out of context pointed to a longer video showing Hichilema speaking in Zambia’s national assembly.

A keyword search on Google for "Hichilema National Assembly Zambia" led to the original live recording of his speech on the Facebook page of the National Assembly of Zambia.

The clip shared on X was taken from an address that the Zambian president made to the country’s national assembly on September 8, 2023.

In the original footage, right before the section featured in the clip shared on social media, Hichilema addressed members of parliament and criticised their response to the country’s debt restructuring plan (see approximately three hours and 39 minutes into the recording of the live feed).

"Why did you borrow money from people you did not like and left a debt? You should have cleaned it up before you left. Now we have to talk to them for them to come to the table," he said.

"I don’t understand the wisdom that our people are using – ‘don’t talk to the imperialists for debt restructuring’ – but you are the ones who went to the imperialists to borrow the money."

This makes it clear that Hichilema was not talking about Zimbabwe, but rather Zambia’s debt restructuring plan.

The country struck a deal to restructure $6.3 billion in debt owed to governments abroad, including China, the largest official creditor to Zambia, with $4.1 billion owed to the Export-Import Bank of China (archived here).