🇿🇲 BRIEFING | Makebi Willing to Serve Even as Councillor to Unseat UPND
Presidential aspirant Makebi Zulu has signalled a willingness to subordinate personal ambition to opposition unity, declaring that he is prepared to serve even at councillor level if it advances the newly formed Tonse-Pamodzi Alliance’s objective of unseating the ruling UPND.
Speaking Thursday during the Electoral Commission of Zambia’s presidential supporters pre-screening exercise at Lusaka Civic Centre, Zulu framed the alliance as a service-driven political project rather than a contest for positions.
“If it calls for me to be a councillor, for us to serve the Zambian people better, that I will be,” he said, adding that leadership titles should never supersede national interest.
The remarks come days after Brian Mundubile and Zulu announced the formation of the Tonse-Pamodzi Alliance, an attempt to consolidate sections of the fragmented opposition ahead of the August 13 general election. The alliance seeks to merge the Tonse Alliance structure with the PF/Pamodzi bloc under a single electoral front.
Zulu’s comments are politically significant because Zambia’s opposition has increasingly been criticised for fragmentation and competing presidential ambitions.
More than 25 presidential aspirants have so far emerged in the current electoral cycle, raising concerns about vote splitting and lack of strategic cohesion within anti-UPND ranks.
Asked whether he would accept serving as Mundubile’s running mate, Zulu avoided drawing red lines. “We are not selfish. We are in this for Zambia,” he said.
“This union is not a union of convenience.”
The language reflects a deliberate attempt to project maturity and compromise within an opposition space often defined by leadership rivalries and parallel alliance formations.
Whether that flexibility translates into actual consolidation remains to be seen, particularly as nomination day approaches and political bargaining intensifies behind the scenes.
Meanwhile, the ECZ has continued conducting pre-screening exercises for presidential aspirants and their supporters ahead of next week’s formal nominations.
Several candidates, including independent contenders and leaders of smaller parties, have already completed the process, signalling the beginning of what is shaping into one of Zambia’s most crowded presidential races in recent history.
© The People’s Brief | Goran Handya; Chileshe Sengwe
Just wait patiently for your zeros this August.
Ba Makebi serving Zambian people,these guys can never serve or love Zambian people iyo!!These are extremely selfish individuals.
That’s already a big self de-decampaign, Zambians cannot vote for a person or people whose only agenda is to unseat UPND, completely no agenda and vision for the country. We still love HH and UPND, it’s one of the best if not the best governments Zambia has ever had.
3 months before elections you still don’t know if you are standing as a president or a councillor. When are you going to recruit election monitors before you accuse the winning UPND of rigging? You guys, eishi are you going to manage to call all corners of Zambia in these 3months? Sometimes I wonder which Zambia you grew up from.
After seeing his chance of being president fading away he has opted to be anything in any position as long as there is something coming.
Is hatred of a single person really a winning strategy? So far I have not heard of a single plan that clearly defines how our opposition candidates will give alternative solutions to what troubles us. None has clearly articulated sensible credible practical alternative solutions.
Is it not mature and reasonable to at least agree that some of polices introduced are great and will be carried forward. If you guys throw away everything achieved where does that leave us as a country.
We can not afford as a country to start afresh every time a new political party comes in. When are we ever going arrive where we are going.
We need to arrive at a place where politics of relevance is established .Where ideas are the battle ground and not personalities.
If the sole objective is to remove one person, which unfortunately is not what we need to be informed. What we need as a priority is when they tell us what alternative plans will replace what is currently working or is in progress.
Emotional turmoil is not enough reason to win an election. It is a dangerous thing to appease feelings only to risk drawing back development 10 years backwards. There is need to show us the voters the need to make a change to what may not be 100% perfect but yet is working well.
You guys need to produce real credible evidence of why we need to replace this government now when we are getting to the time of harvesting results.