By Brian Matambo — Lusaka, Zambia

On EMV, hosted by Emmanuel Mwamba, civil society voice Brebner Changala tore into the core problem haunting Zambia’s opposition project. The Patriotic Front is split in practice, the Tonse Alliance is wobbling in structure, and the two crises are feeding each other. Until PF resolves its internal power contest and the Alliance restores basic rules of engagement, unity will remain a slogan rather than a plan.

THE SEAN TEMBO MEETING AND WHAT IT EXPOSED
The spark was a meeting convened by Sean Tembo, leader of the Patriots for Economic Progress (PeP) and a Tonse Alliance member. He called the gathering at his private residence, but it was disrupted by youths. PF Members of Parliament later condemned the violence, but Changala insisted the deeper issue was the irregularity of the meeting itself.

According to him, no Tonse business should be conducted outside the Alliance’s agreed structures, yet Tembo proceeded without clearance from the recognized leadership. The result was predictable: suspicion, division, and violence. As Changala put it, opposition politics cannot be run from private living rooms.

PF’S TWIN CENTERS OF POWER
Changala’s blunt diagnosis was that PF itself is fractured. One faction rallies behind Acting President Given Lubinda and Secretary General Raphael Nakachinda. Another is aligned with Leader of the Opposition in Parliament Brian Mundubile. This, he said, is untenable.

“You cannot run an organization while pulling in opposite directions,” he warned. His prescription was pointed. Mundubile should submit to Lubinda’s authority until the party’s elective convention. Not as humiliation, but as leadership.

The arithmetic is simple. If Tonse requires coherent blocs, PF must first be one bloc. If PF remains divided, Tonse becomes a megaphone for quarrels rather than a platform for strategy.

THE ZUMANI LIST AND THE POLITICS OF LEGITIMACY
Underlying the mistrust is the “expanded Council of Leaders” list promoted by Chris Zumani Zimba. Changala disclosed that Edgar Chagwa Lungu himself never approved it. In fact, he had instructed that any such framework be submitted to Acting President Lubinda for Central Committee approval. That process never happened.

For it to reappear now, Changala argued, and for Lungu’s name to be invoked to justify it, is nothing but political fraud. “It is immoral,” he said, “to use a dead man’s legacy to advance an agenda he never sanctioned.”

WHY TONSE IS STRUGGLING
Tonse was marketed to Zambians as an orderly discipline of cooperation. In practice, it has become a circus of sudden suspensions, social media pronouncements, and selective attendance at meetings. Changala argued that respect for hierarchy is non-negotiable. There may be eleven parties in the Alliance, but there must be one clear pyramid, with PF as its anchor.

Without that discipline, every meeting becomes a factional maneuver and every statement a potential trigger for collapse.

WHAT UNITY WOULD LOOK LIKE
Changala outlined a simple sequence:
1. PF must unify behind Lubinda until convention.
2. Tonse must enforce a meeting protocol: who calls, who clears, who chairs, and where. Private homes are out.
3. Discipline must address both violence and irregular convening.
4. Legacy issues like the Zumani list must go through PF’s Central Committee before being tabled in Tonse.
5. Public communication must align. MPs, the PF Secretariat, and Tonse spokespeople should issue one consistent line.

THE COST OF DRIFT
Every week of factionalism erodes opposition credibility. Citizens see an Alliance that condemns violence yet organizes meetings designed to provoke it. They see a PF that promises renewal while airing its dirty laundry on camera. With a national budget under debate and constitutional reforms looming, the opposition risks being locked in internal squabbles while the ruling party drives the agenda.

CHANGALA’S HARD ASK
His most personal appeal was to Brian Mundubile. He urged him to go to the PF Secretariat, sit with Given Lubinda, and work under the current leadership until the elective convention. That act, Changala said, would end the narrative of two PFs and allow Tonse to speak with one voice.

WHERE THIS LEAVES THE ALLIANCE
The next Tonse meeting will be a litmus test. If it is properly convened, chaired by Lubinda, and attended by all stakeholders, the Alliance can begin to reset. If another residence meeting surfaces, or if PF leaders hold competing press briefings, the spiral deepens.

As Changala concluded, the public is not demanding miracles. They are demanding proof that the opposition can follow its own rules. If PF cannot unite its house, and Tonse cannot enforce discipline, then the promise of an alternative government will collapse before it reaches the ballot.

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