Rev. Dr. Given Katuta: The Woman Who Was Independent Before It Was a Movement

For most of the past decade, Dr. Given Katuta Mwelwa stood almost alone. As the only female independent Member of Parliament in a male-dominated political space, she represented Chienge in Luapula Province through two terms, one under a small party banner, one entirely on her own, years before this year's election produced a record 20 independent MPs. Now, having run as Zambia's first-ever independent female presidential candidate, she has written directly to that new class of independents, urging them to protect the very thing that got them elected.

FROM CHIENGE'S FIRST FEMALE MP TO A LONE INDEPENDENT VOICE

Dr. Katuta was born on 6 March 1969 in Chienge, then part of Nchelenge District in Luapula Province, and completed her secondary education at Lubuto in Ndola. She is married to Dr Lawrence Mwelwa, former Vice Chancellor of Chreso University, and the couple have nine children and two grandchildren. She later earned a Bachelor of Business Administration from Chalimbana University and holds an honorary doctorate in Public Administration from the London Graduate School of the Commonwealth University, alongside training as a reverend and describing herself as an "award-winning Marriage Counselor."

She entered Parliament in 2016 as the candidate of the small Forum for Democracy and Development party, becoming Chienge's first-ever female MP after defeating the Patriotic Front candidate in an election where PF otherwise swept the constituency's council and presidential vote entirely.

It was a striking upset for a minor party in PF's stronghold province. In 2021, she was re-elected, this time as an independent, becoming, by her own account, the only female independent MP in Zambia's National Assembly, a distinction that placed her at the centre of a political space still overwhelmingly dominated by party structures and by men.

Her time in Parliament was rarely quiet. She clashed publicly with traditional leadership in her own constituency, telling reporters in 2020 that a local chief did not want her operating in her own area, and was a consistent, sharp-tongued critic of the ruling UPND, once warning that President Hakainde Hichilema's "praise singers may lead him to a ditch." That willingness to challenge power regardless of who held it became a defining feature of her political identity.

A FIRST IN ZAMBIAN HISTORY

In October 2025, Katuta declared her intention to challenge Hichilema for the presidency in 2026, running as an independent, making her the first woman in Zambian history to mount an independent presidential bid. She gave up her Chienge seat to do so, and did not return to Parliament in this year's election, closing out her tenure as MP for Chienge from 2021 to 2026, a chapter she now refers to in the past tense.

A LETTER TO THE CLASS OF 2026

Katuta marked this year's record independent showing, 20 MPs elected without party backing, with a public letter addressed to what she called her "Hon. Independent MPs-Elect, 2026."

In it, she traced the rise of independent politics in Zambia from 1991, when not a single independent won a seat, through a slow climb, 10 in 1996, as few as one in 2001, three each in 2006 and 2011, 14 in 2016, 13 in 2021, and now 20 in 2026, a tally she compiled and presented as her own account of the country's independent parliamentary history. "This growth proves one thing," she wrote. "When candidates serve the people with integrity, party colours don't matter."

Her message to the new intake was pointed and specific. She urged them not to enter any alliance with the ruling party that could be used to amend the Constitution and remove the provision allowing independent candidates to stand at all.

"Our independence is our strength," she wrote. "The moment we surrender it, we give away the very reason Zambians voted for us, to be a free voice, to vote with conscience, and to put Zambia above party." She called on the group to caucus together and defend the space independents now occupy, framing their mandate as coming directly from voters rather than any party structure.

THE IMPACT OF A LONE VOICE, NOW MULTIPLIED

Katuta's own political arc, from a first-time FDD upset winner in 2016, to Zambia's most visible female independent voice through 2021 to 2026, to the country's first female independent presidential candidate this year, tracks almost exactly with the broader independent movement she now claims a stake in shepherding.

She spent years as one of very few people making the case that party affiliation was not a prerequisite for serving constituents effectively. This year's 20-strong independent cohort, the largest in Zambia's multiparty history, is the clearest evidence yet that a meaningful slice of the Zambian electorate came to agree with her.