⬆️ THE CANDIDATES | Given Lubinda: The Loyalist With No Base
Given Lubinda enters the PF leadership race with one of the longest political CVs in the field. His career spans twenty years in Parliament, four senior Cabinet ministries, and a decade of visibility as one of the most recognisable faces of the Patriotic Front. He is not a newcomer and he does not sell himself as one. His message is stability. His pitch is experience.
Born in 1963, Lubinda’s training is in agriculture, with added credentials in business management, strategic planning and natural resource management. He built his political footprint in Kabwata, where he held the parliamentary seat from 2001 to 2021, surviving the MMD wave, the Sata populist rise, the Lungu consolidation, and two decades of Lusaka’s shifting political mood.
His ministerial record is broad. Information. Foreign Affairs. Agriculture and Livestock. Justice. These are not minor roles. They place him among the few PF aspirants who understand how policy is drafted, funded, implemented and defended in Parliament. That institutional memory gives him leverage within PF structures now fractured by parallel conventions, legal fights and factional command posts.
As acting PF President and acting Chair of the Tonse Alliance, Lubinda holds a unique dual portfolio. He is the face of PF internally and the bridge into a wider coalition externally. That gives him strategic reach but also creates pressure. Acting roles are temporary. They carry authority but not mandate. Unless the convention endorses him, his influence will remain contested.
His strength lies in being seen as the adult in a room filled with feuding camps. His weakness is the same thing. PF is not in a technocratic mood. It is a party searching for a fighter, a symbol, a lightning rod. Lubinda speaks the language of institutional discipline at a time when cadres, MPs and delegates crave a political brawler who can match UPND’s messaging and reclaim lost ground in urban strongholds.
This challenge becomes sharper in the shadow of PF’s informal tribal geometry. Lubinda is ethnically from Western Province. PF’s delegate map is dominated by Muchinga, Northern, Luapula and Eastern. This is the northern circuit and eastern enclave that has shaped PF leadership calculations for years. It is the same pattern that delivered Sata and Lungu and the same calculus that Makebi and Mundubile are now exploiting.
Mumbi Phiri, once PF’s deputy secretary general and now a loud Makebi supporter, has been blunt for months now: “PF president must be Bemba, running mate must be Easterner.” It is not written in the constitution, but it is embedded in PF’s political culture. That unwritten ideology is Lubinda’s biggest structural hurdle. His experience is respected. His loyalty is not doubted. But the delegate arithmetic limits his ceiling before voting even begins.
Lubinda’s campaign attempts to break this ceiling by framing himself as the unity candidate, a figure who can stabilise the party, negotiate alliances and restore internal order after years of legal battles and leadership chaos. Whether this message resonates with a convention dominated by regions outside his own remains uncertain.
What is clear is this: if PF wants institutional stability, Lubinda is the natural choice. If PF wants a populist fightback, the delegates may look elsewhere. His candidacy will test whether PF has matured into a national party or remains tethered to its original ethnic circuitry. In a race defined by factional heat, legal disputes, and regional politics, Lubinda stands out not because he shouts the loudest, but because he understands the machinery he hopes to lead.
Next in The Candidates: Populists, pragmatists, and the dark horses redefining Zambia’s 2026 battle.
© The People’s Brief | Political Desk
Point of Correction.
The Patriotic Front ‘s delegate base is Copperbelt and Lusaka Provinces. That’s the strength of the Party. Whoever is trying to portray the Patriotic Front as a party of Northern, Muchinga, Luapula and Eastern Province is a liar with a Tribal Agenda.
I have followed the UPND brief operating under the People ‘s brief writings, using pseudo names. Am sure the Timmys , M Mwanzas are now operating under this UPND brief.
The other issue they want to force is the assignment of Central Province to the UPND, to give it a national character outside the 3 provinces. This again is a lie. Of the 11 districts in Central Province only 4 can be said to be aligned to the UPND.
The people’s brief is a UPND mouth piece peddling it’s propaganda and narratives.
Sir, don’t be a stupid Ostrich and senseless and shameless Hypocrite. Both PF and UPND have bloody Tribal origins. Their powerbase is tribal: PF- Northern/Eastern and UPND-Southern/Western and North Western. Copperbelt/Lusaka are urban/cosmopolitan provinces with many tribes and never vote on Tribal lines. These vote with their stomachs and pockets. Any Party which empties both their stomachs and pockets, they vote against.
The only two Parties which ruled this country which were not tribal Parties were: UNIP and MMD.
My view.
Out of 12 Constituences of Lusaka Province, PF only has a paltry 4 Members of Parliament. Talk of stronghold. What kind of stronghold is this?
I fail to understand why UPND is blamed on PF self damage.
* ECL declared his retirement.
* PF advertised the Presidential position and all the hopefuls applied and an amount of money was suggested, they paid.
* They failed to organize the convention.
* Sampa organized his convention on the independence day and he became President.
* ECL comes back from retirement.
* Sampa taken to court for his convention and declaration of his Presidency.And named as masquerader.
* Different court cases on various issues
* Rumours of lost money for Presidential hopefuls were heard.
* ECL endorsements started coming out.
* ECL eligibility case started and later Constitutional Court ruled that he could not contest for Presidency anymore.
* Some PF members declared no ECL on ballot, no elections.
* Unfortunately untimely demise of ECL occurs.And not put to rest up to now.
* Bo Lubinda left as PF boss following the ECL’s handpicking.
* Presidential hopefuls emerge and not accepting the hand picking of bo Lubinda by late ECL.
* Meeting of PF big wigs convened and agreed with convention.
* Honourable Chabinga sounds warning that he is the only President of PF.And he declares any convention sanctioned by any one else is invalid.
* The PF faction of bo Lubinda suggests the holding of convention by November month end.
* The other member of the PF goes to Kabwe High Court to seek an injunction to restrain the bo Lubinda faction from holding the convention and stopping them from using the party secretariate and logos as well as letter heads for PF.
* The faction is disappointed and not accepting the injunction, and saying they would go ahead as planned.
* One lawyer of the faction says no to the court injunction document, as he notices some typographic error of “himself” and not “herself” he takes the matter to the Court.
We are now waiting to hear what next.
But how the UPND picture pops in the minds of PF supporters and sympathisers is what is questionable.They think UPND is playing a role in the PF internal conflicts.