Patriotic Front presidential aspirant Makebi Zulu has placed himself firmly within the PF Pamodzi Alliance, while signalling that the bigger political objective ahead of the August elections remains broader opposition cooperation, including the possibility of working with Brian Mundubile and other rival formations once internal PF processes are concluded.
In an interview on Radio Christian Voice, Zulu set out a position that was at once combative on principle and flexible on political strategy. He rejected suggestions that he was preparing to abandon the Patriotic Front for a quicker route to the ballot, but also made it clear that he does not see the opposition fight against the ruling UPND as a contest any single party or alliance can win alone.
That balancing act sits at the heart of the current opposition moment. The PF remains locked in disputes over leadership, legitimacy and the route to its long-awaited general conference. At the same time, rival opposition centres have continued to emerge, with Brian Mundubile taking the lead in the Tonse Alliance, while senior PF figures aligned to Given Lubinda and other contenders have moved into the PF Pamodzi Alliance.
Zulu’s intervention matters because it attempts to define where he belongs in that fluid landscape and how he believes the opposition should approach the election.
He confirmed that he is not in Tonse, and that his current political home is the PF Pamodzi Alliance, which he described as a product of a Patriotic Front Central Committee resolution aimed at creating a vehicle capable of drawing in like-minded parties while the PF settles its own internal leadership question.
For Zulu, the move into PF Pamodzi is not a rejection of unity. He framed it instead as a temporary political arrangement born out of what he sees as the mishandling of the Tonse project after the death of former president Edgar Lungu. He argued that the original understanding around Tonse recognised the PF as the anchor party and envisaged the alliance leadership emerging from within PF structures. In his telling, that arrangement was later altered, leaving the PF outside the very framework it had been expected to anchor.
That is where Brian Mundubile enters the equation. Zulu was careful not to turn the interview into a direct personal attack on Mundubile, even when pushed to do so. He declined to personalise the dispute, but plainly said the current shape of Tonse is not one he accepts as having followed the original script. He said the problem was less the personality involved than the process that led to the present outcome.
Still, his position was not one of total rupture. On the contrary, one of the clearest messages from the interview was that he remains willing to work with Mundubile and others, provided that engagement happens at the right stage, on agreed terms, and in a way that does not further fracture the PF.
Zulu said that, as things stand now, he cannot simply walk into Tonse as an individual. In his view, that would amount to abandoning a movement he says still has to choose its own leader and stabilise its own structures. But he also said that once the PF settles its internal process, there is every chance of cooperation with Tonse and other opposition formations. At that point, he argued, the engagement would not be one politician crossing the floor to join another politician, but an organised political structure negotiating from a position of legitimacy.
That distinction was central to his case. He said the issue is not whether the opposition should work together. It must. The issue is how they work together, and from what political footing.
Zulu also used the interview to rule out another route that has hovered around his candidacy: the National Congress Party endorsement. He acknowledged that the NCP had offered him a presidential ticket, but he made it clear he has not taken it up. His reasoning was blunt. A “free ticket,” he said, is not the point if it comes at the cost of worsening opposition fragmentation. In his view, stepping out alone under another party banner would contradict the very unity message opposition leaders have been preaching to the public.
That line sharpened his broader appeal. He said Zambians are not asking for more breakaways, more logos or more parallel ambitions. They are asking for a credible alternative to the UPND. He argued that voters want opposition parties to prove that they can subordinate personal calculations to a national objective.
In that context, Zulu cast himself less as a man chasing any available ballot slot and more as a contender willing to submit to a wider process. He maintained that he wants to be Republican President and believes he is qualified to lead, but he also said that if another opposition candidate is shown to command stronger numbers and broader support, it would be wrong to ignore that reality. The same logic, he suggested, would apply to cooperation with forces now outside PF Pamodzi, including Mundubile’s camp.
That does not mean the divisions are resolved. Far from it. The opposition remains split among multiple alliances, multiple egos and multiple theories of how to defeat the UPND. But Zulu’s interview offered a political signal worth noting: he is planting his flag in PF Pamodzi for now, while keeping the door open to a later convergence with Mundubile and the rest of the opposition.
With presidential filing drawing closer, that question may soon become unavoidable. The opposition can continue operating as competing centres of mobilisation, or it can try to turn those centres into a single electoral force. Zulu’s answer, at least for now, is that the PF must first choose its leader, hold its line through PF Pamodzi, and then negotiate unity from there. The argument is not that Mundubile and the others must be shut out. It is that they must eventually be brought in through a process the broader opposition can defend before voters.