Is Mundubile the NRPUP President?

Is Mundubile the NRPUP President?

By Mr Mwanza Emmanuel · 21 Oct 2026

No. Brian Mundubile was the presidential candidate adopted by the National Reconciliation Party for Unity and Prosperity (NRPUP) for the August 13, 2026 general election, but he has never been the party’s president. That office belongs to Mr Ezra Tembo, and nothing about the election result changed that.

Since the polls, many Zambians have spoken of “Mundubile’s NRPUP” as though the candidate and the party were one and the same. They are not. Mr Mundubile may still lead the Tonse Alliance, but the NRPUP is a separate, registered political party with its own constitution, its own officials and its own president.

How Mundubile came to stand on the NRPUP ticket

Mr Mundubile became the NRPUP’s candidate through an alliance arrangement, not a party election. In January 2026 the Tonse Alliance chose him as its presidential candidate, at first intending to field him through the Forum for Democracy and Development (FDD). When FDD members raised objections in May 2026, he switched to the NRPUP as the vehicle for his candidacy.

The alliance itself described the arrangement plainly. Its spokesperson, Emmanuel Mwamba, explained that for the 2026 elections the Tonse Alliance adopted the NRPUP as a special purpose vehicle, while the Pamodzi Alliance used the Resolute Party.

President Hakainde Hichilema won in the first round with 60.49% of the vote, while Mr Mundubile received 37.87%. Soon after, NRPUP President Ezra Tembo accepted the result and congratulated the winners, while Mr Mundubile said he would challenge it in court. On August 23, 2026, the NRPUP announced it had withdrawn from the Tonse-Pamodzi Alliance altogether.

A candidate is not a party president

A political party chooses its president through its own constitution, normally at a general conference or convention of its members. At no point did the NRPUP convene a general conference and elect Brian Mundubile as its party president. Without that, there is simply no basis for calling him the head of the party.

Being adopted as a party’s candidate is a contract for one election. It gives the candidate the party’s name, symbol and support on the ballot. It does not hand over the party’s leadership, its structures or its decision-making organs.

The party has said this itself. Mr Tembo told the media that Mr Mundubile was contracted to run under the NRPUP banner but is not the president of the party.

That leaves two distinct roles, held by two different men:

How it was acquired

Tonse Alliance leader and 2026 presidential candidate

Brian Mundubile
Chosen at a Tonse Alliance convention on January 28, 2026

NRPUP party president
Ezra Tembo

The NRPUP’s own internal structures
Mr Mundubile may therefore continue to be the leader of the Tonse Alliance, if the alliance’s members still accept him. But that title gives him no authority inside the NRPUP.

In Parliament there are NRPUP MPs, not Tonse Alliance MPs

The National Assembly does not recognise the Tonse Alliance as a single entity. An alliance is a political understanding between parties; it is not a registered party, and no candidate stood on a “Tonse Alliance” ballot paper. Every opposition MP elected on that platform was elected as an NRPUP member of parliament, and the NRPUP’s president is Mr Ezra Tembo.

This matters because an MP’s seat is tied to the party that sponsored them, not to an alliance. Mr Tembo, who won the Dag Hammarskjöld seat in Ndola, told journalists in September that all 59 NRPUP lawmakers sworn in remained loyal to the current party leadership.

Mr Mundubile, for his part, is no longer in the House. His term as Mporokoso MP ended when Parliament was dissolved in May 2026, and he contested the presidency rather than a seat. He therefore has no parliamentary role from which to lead NRPUP MPs.

What the Constitution says about an adopted candidate who loses

The short answer is that the Constitution of Zambia says nothing at all. It sets out who may stand for President and allows a candidate to be sponsored by a political party or to stand as an independent. But it is silent on the relationship between a sponsoring party and an adopted candidate once the election is lost.

What the Constitution does say points away from the idea that a losing candidate inherits a party:

• No office for a losing candidate. A defeated presidential candidate holds no constitutional office. Unlike an elected MP, they take no oath and occupy no seat.

• Parties run their own affairs. Article 60(2)(d) requires political parties to practise internal democracy. Leadership is therefore decided through a party’s own constitution and conferences, not through a ballot sponsorship.

• MPs belong to their sponsoring party. Under Article 72(2), an MP loses their seat if they resign from, or are expelled by, the party that sponsored them. Loyalty in the House runs to the party, not to an alliance or a candidate.

• The Leader of the Opposition comes from the largest opposition party. Article 74(2) provides that the MPs of the largest opposition party elect the Leader of the Opposition from among themselves.

In other words, once the votes are counted, the adoption agreement has served its purpose.

The candidate returns to whatever position they held before, and the party returns to its own leadership.

Why the Speaker recognised Ezra Tembo, not Stephen Kampyongo

On Tuesday, October 20, 2026, Speaker Nelly Mutti recognised Mr Tembo as Leader of the Opposition, with Milenge MP Gystave Chonde as Party Whip and Nyimba North MP Paul Lungu as Deputy Whip. The decision followed weeks of dispute. Shiwang’andu MP Stephen Kampyongo had claimed he was elected to the post by fellow NRPUP MPs.

The Speaker’s reasoning follows from three facts:

1. The NRPUP is the largest opposition party. Article 74(2) gives its MPs, and only its MPs, the right to choose the Leader of the Opposition. The Tonse Alliance has no standing here.

2. The party’s official channel named Tembo. The NRPUP said 34 of its MPs resolved on September 3, 2026 to back Mr Tembo, and Secretary General Nonde Mubanga submitted his name to the National Assembly. The Speaker cited that communication from the Secretary General when making the announcement.

3. The Speaker does not referee party disputes. In 2024 the Constitutional Court ruled, in a case concerning Mr Mundubile himself, that choosing the Leader of the Opposition is an internal matter for the party and that the Speaker’s role is only to receive the name in writing.

The Kampyongo claim came from a caucus of MPs meeting on their own. The Tembo nomination came from the party’s Secretary General. Faced with the two, the Speaker followed the party’s formal structure, which is exactly what the law and the Court’s precedent direct.

The other side of the argument

Mr Mundubile’s supporters see it differently, and their case deserves a fair hearing:
• The votes were his. Nearly 1.86 million Zambians voted for Mundubile, not for a party they had barely heard of months earlier. On this view, the NRPUP’s support and its seats were earned by the alliance’s campaign, and the party owes its standing to him.
• The vehicle was meant to serve the alliance. Alliance leaders argue the NRPUP was adopted on the understanding that it would carry the Tonse-Pamodzi agenda, including after the polls. Tonse Alliance chairman Binwell Mpundu has publicly accused Mr Tembo of betraying those who built his political career.
• MPs chose Kampyongo. Supporters of Mr Kampyongo say a caucus of NRPUP MPs elected him, and that the MPs, not a secretary general, are the ones Article 74(2) empowers.
• Timing and context. Critics note that the NRPUP distanced itself from Mr Mundubile while he was in detention on charges he denies, and question whether that was a fair moment to settle the party’s direction.

These are serious political grievances. But they are claims about fairness and loyalty, not about who the NRPUP’s constitution makes its president. Unless the alliance’s terms were written into a binding agreement, and the NRPUP’s members voted for a new leader, Mr Tembo remains the party president.

Zambia needs clear laws for this situation
The confusion of the past two months is a warning. Zambian politics increasingly relies on alliances and “special purpose vehicles”, yet our laws were written for single parties fielding their own leaders. The 2026 election shows the gap clearly: a candidate leading one body, a party president leading another, and MPs caught between them.

In the near future, Parliament should consider legislation, or amendments to the Political Parties Act and the Electoral Process Act, that spell out:

1. The status of an adopted candidate after the election. Does the candidate gain any role in the sponsoring party, and for how long?

2. Registration of alliances. Should electoral alliances be registered, with written and publicly filed agreements that say who leads them after the vote?

3. Who controls MPs elected on an alliance platform. The law should state clearly whether such MPs answer to the sponsoring party, the alliance, or both.

4. How parliamentary leadership disputes are settled. A clear procedure for when MPs and party headquarters nominate different people as Leader of the Opposition.

Until such laws exist, the answer to our question rests on the party’s own constitution. Brian Mundubile may remain the face of the Tonse Alliance, but the president of the NRPUP is Mr Ezra Tembo.

Mr Mwanza Emmanuel