PF is Not Under Siege From Outside; It is Bleeding From Within

 EDITOR’S NOTE | PF is Not Under Siege From Outside; It is Bleeding From Within

The events unfolding in the Patriotic Front over the last forty-eight hours have confirmed what many refused to hear weeks ago. When we warned that PF’s collapse was internal and historic rather than a scripted takeover by Hichilema or UPND, readers called us biased. Today those same readers are watching the party fragment into three camps inside the Lubinda bloc alone. The Makebi base, the Mundubile base and the Lubinda loyalists are all accusing each other of sabotage.

The party is cracking not because of outside pressure but because of unresolved internal fractures that stretch back two decades.

Last night’s revolt was triggered by Acting President Given Lubinda’s sweeping dismissals. He fired the national chairperson, the acting secretary general, long-standing Central Committee members and four provincial chairpersons. This afternoon, the dropped officials convened their own mobilisation.

Lupososhi MP Musonda Mpankata, flanked by Davis Mwila and Jonas Shakafuswa, declared Lubinda’s actions “illegal” and “a danger to the soul of the party.” He argued that the PF constitution does not give an acting president power to hire or fire without Central Committee ratification. He accused Lubinda of choosing “personal ambition and survival” over party unity.

The reaction inside PF is telling. The Lubinda bloc itself is no longer solid. The Mundubile wing believes Lubinda has been “captured” by an external hand. The Makebi wing says the purge proves what they have whispered for weeks: that their camp had been undermined from within by old-guard loyalists.

Meanwhile the Chabinga faction is preparing another media briefing next week. Davis Mwila and former party heavyweights are holding parallel meetings seeking to remove Lubinda entirely. It is a party moving in several directions at once, with no shared centre of authority.

The fight has now taken a tribal undertone on internal PF platforms. Some members accuse Lubinda of being “from the Zambezi region” and working with UPND to dismantle the party. Others want him expelled. Meanwhile, Celestine Mukandila, newly appointed Deputy Secretary General for Administration, is trying to justify Lubinda’s decision.

But by Saturday afternoon Mpankata publicly warned him that the appointment is unconstitutional and must be rejected. The internal breakdown is no longer quiet or strategic. It is now open warfare in broad daylight.

This is exactly what we analysed earlier. PF has never held a transparent, competitive convention since 2001. Michael Sata selected party leadership by voice vote. Edgar Lungu was installed under similar conditions during the violent 2014 succession. PF has no institutional memory of democratic transitions. It has only known transitions managed through force, voice acclamation or backroom lists.

The current crisis is not new. It is tradition replaying itself. It is a system built on personal power now collapsing under the weight of its own habits.

New information reaching our desk through our email shows how deep suspicion has become. Some sources claim Lubinda reacted partly because of intelligence that the Kabwe brutality was backed by senior PF figures to embarrass him. We cannot verify this claim now. Seven people have been arrested, and every faction is blaming UPND cadres.

But what is clear is the deep mistrust among PF’s top ranks. Every action is interpreted as sabotage. Every decision is treated as a declaration of war. UPND did not create this climate. PF did.

If UPND appears to be benefiting, it is only because PF has created a leadership vacuum. A party that spends two years in court, runs rival conventions, purges itself at midnight and refuses internal dialogue is not being captured from outside. It is collapsing from inside.

A movement that blames others for every self-inflicted wound is not ready for national leadership. It is running from its own history.

PF stands seven days away from a convention it has never successfully held in its twenty-four years. The deeper question is no longer who will win the presidency but whether the party will survive the process at all.

What PF needs now is not another statement, another press conference or another legal battle. It needs dialogue among its own elders, chiefs and respected community figures. Without that, PF will continue to fracture until there is nothing left to fight over.

If you have verified insights from PF structures, share them with us at editor.peoplesbrief@gmail.com.

© The People’s Brief | Editor-in-Chief