I MEAN WELL, M’MEMBE SHOULD REFLECT ON MY OFFER – MUNDUBILE
Thursday, 7 May 2026 (News Diggers)
Tonse Alliance President Brian Mundubile says he respects Dr Fred M’membe’s position on his call for him to join his alliance but hopes that the Socialist Party leader will reflect and realise that he means well.
On Tuesday, Dr M’membe dismissed calls by Tonse Alliance president Mundubile for fellow opposition leaders to join him, stating that unity cannot be built through press conferences and that Mundubile’s camp is only seeking support.
In an interview, Wednesday, Mundubile said some opposition leaders had heeded his call and are in active discussions with the Tonse Alliance.
He added that people often assume the opposition do not talk to each other when calls are not made publicly, even though they actually do.
“We made a call in good faith and if you saw the occasion where we made that call, it was at an occasion where we were welcoming other political parties. And if you go back in your records, you’ll see that it’s not the first time I have made that call. We respect the response from our comrade Fred M’membe, the Socialist Party [leader], it’s their position and we of course respect it.
We respect the response from comrade Fred M’membe but what we did was a noble gesture. We believe others may heed to the call and we’ll continue engaging. I want to tell you that there are others from the same call that have responded and we are in active discussions with them. So yes, we respect their response but like I said, we made the call in good faith and we are heeding to the calls by the Zambian people for the opposition to unite,” Mundubile noted.
“Sometimes when we don’t make calls publicly, people don’t think we talk to each other and yet we do. The call was very genuine and I’m still hoping that even my brother who has answered, dismissing that call, will one day soon sit and reflect to realise that we mean well. We mean well and we still look forward to meeting with them, we still look forward to engaging with them even further so that we can build a stronger opposition together.
I was calling them with utmost humility, I made sure I said with utmost humility, I’m calling upon these brothers to come and unite with us. So, the occasion was right and I was humbled by the gesture from WOZA, WOZA, with very seasoned politicians, they’ve been on the political platform for some time and realising that we are out of time and we have to unite, decided to unite with us. So in thanking them, I also reached out to other equally seasoned politicians like comrade Fred M’membe, Makebi Zulu, Harry Kalaba, Kelvin Fube Bwalya, and many others”.
Mundubile added that the Tonse Alliance has made substantial progress in uniting the opposition, stating that 50 presidential candidates could have contested the presidency if not for political parties joining the alliance.
“At every occasion, when I’ve had an opportunity, I’ve called the opposition to unite and we have made substantial progress as Tonse to unite with other opposition leaders. The other day it was WOZA, few weeks earlier it was with president Mwenya Musenge’s party, the other time it was the Green Party, president Peter Sinkamba’s party, the other time it was Ichabaiche, Movement for Good Governance. And I’m sure you’ve been following that we’ve not just been making empty calls, we’ve been making calls that are followed up with engagements.
With 22 registered political parties under Tonse, you will agree with me that we’ve made some substantial progress in uniting the opposition, that is to say maybe, if we didn’t make the efforts that we’ve made, instead of having 25 political parties on the ballot, we would have had 50 by now,” said Mundubile.