SHAMELESS OPPOSITION CHARACTERS
By James Phiri, Kwamutonyo
The Candidates Managing Editor
Let us stop hiding behind generalities. Zambia’s opposition is not weak by accident. It is weak because it is led by small men with oversized egos, men who want power without sacrifice, relevance without struggle, and authority without organisation.
Let us name them.
HARRY KALABA: A PARTY THAT EXISTS ONLY IN HIS HEAD
Harry Kalaba’s Citizen First is not a political party. It is a personal WhatsApp group masquerading as a national movement.
Ask a simple question:
Who are the leaders of Citizen First beyond Harry Kalaba himself?
Silence.
No visible national structures.
No identifiable provincial leadership.
No credible mobilisation machinery.
Citizen First is a party where only members known personally by Kalaba matter. Everyone else is a spectator, a cheerleader, or disposable noise. This is not opposition politics. It is political narcissism.Kalaba wants to be president without building a movement. He wants national power through personal branding. He confuses media visibility with political strength. Elections are not won by interviews; they are won by structures, discipline, and ground presence. None of which Citizen First possesses.
Citizen First is not suppressed by the state.
It is empty by design.
FRED M’MEMBE: A REVOLUTIONARY TRAPPED IN HIS OWN LIVING ROOM
Fred M’membe is the most tragic failure of Zambia’s opposition.
Unlike others, he has everything an opposition leader needs:
Ideological clarity
International connections
Access to funding networks
Historical credibility
On paper, the Socialist Party should be the main opposition force in Zambia.
In reality, it is a family operated political household.
When a political party starts to resemble a home where relatives occupy senior positions,you are no longer running a movement; you are running a private estate. The moment leadership becomes intimate and domestic, growth dies.
M’membe does not lack intelligence.
He lacks political openness.
He controls too tightly. He centralises too much. He trusts too few. Revolutionary rhetoric cannot substitute for mass inclusion. You cannot claim to fight elite capture while practising internal capture.
The result?
A party with potential, money, ideology and no momentum.
History will record this not as persecution, but as self-sabotage.
THE REST: POLITICAL CLOWNS AND CAREER PROTESTERS
Beyond Kalaba and M’membe, the landscape collapses into pure comedy.
The rest of the opposition consists of:
Briefcase parties
Seasonal presidential candidates
Men who appear every five years and disappear immediately after defeat
They have no ideology.
No national vision.
No organisational depth.
They exist not to win power, but to:
Negotiate appointments
Seek relevance
Trade endorsements for comfort
These are not leaders.
They are political hustlers.
THE BRUTAL TRUTH
Hakainde Hichilema does not fear this opposition. Why should he?
He faces:
Personal projects
Family-run parties
Ego-driven leaders
Structurally hollow organisations
This is not repression territory.
This is open-field domination.
Zambia’s tragedy is not that Hichilema is too strong.
It is that those opposing him are too unserious to govern.
Until opposition leaders are willing to:
Build real national structures
Surrender personal control
End family politics
Risk comfort for confrontation
Nothing will change
PF is dead.
The opposition is alive but politically infertile.
And Zambia remains hostage not to dictatorship alone, but to the utter failure of those who claim to be the alternative.
©The Candidates 2026
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