Miles Sampa Turns on FDD as Opposition Unity Frays After Chawama Win

 BRIEFING | Miles Sampa Turns on FDD as Opposition Unity Frays After Chawama Win

The fragile opposition truce forged during the Chawama by-election is already showing signs of strain, with Miles Sampa launching a public broadside against the Forum for Democracy and Development, an alliance partner in the Tonse arrangement that delivered the seat.

In a now-deleted Facebook post, Sampa dismissed the role of FDD and rival Tonse figures in the Chawama victory, insisting that the win belonged exclusively to the Patriotic Front’s grassroots machinery.

He claimed that the newly elected MP, Bright Nundwe, was “not FDD” but a product of what he called the “genuine True Green PF movement.”

“For the record; the new MP for Chawama is a product and part of the genuine True Green PF movement that is in people’s hearts and will never die,” Sampa wrote, before warning the FDD and the rival Tonse faction to “stay away from him.”

The remarks directly challenge the political reality of the by-election. Nundwe formally contested on the FDD ticket, with the Tonse Alliance adopting FDD as a special purpose vehicle amid unresolved leadership disputes within the PF. That arrangement was meant to project unity and avoid brand confusion. Instead, Sampa’s intervention has reopened the fault lines.

At the heart of the dispute is ownership of victory. Sampa is arguing that PF structures, history, and sentiment in Chawama delivered the win, while the FDD merely provided a legal vehicle. By contrast, the Tonse faction led by Dan Pule has treated the result as a collective opposition success achieved through compromise and coordination.

The language used by Sampa is telling. By accusing alliance partners of “hijacking” the win, he signals that the cooperation was tactical, not ideological. It also reflects deeper anxiety within opposition ranks about who controls political capital generated by Edgar Lungu’s legacy strongholds, and who gets to brand that support going into August vote.

So far, the FDD has chosen silence, declining to respond publicly to the attack. But the damage is already visible. What was supposed to be a moment of consolidation after a morale-boosting by-election has quickly turned into a struggle over narrative, credit, and control.

Chawama has exposed an uncomfortable truth for the opposition. Winning together is easier than agreeing on who owns the win. And if these tensions surface so quickly after a single constituency victory, they raise serious questions about whether opposition alliances can hold under the pressure of a national campaign.

For now, the seat is secured. But the aftershocks suggest that opposition unity remains transactional, brittle, and vulnerable to implosion at the first sign of triumph.

© The People’s Brief | Goran Handya