STOP THE HYPOCRISY: ZAMBIA NEEDS ISSUE-BASED POLITICS, NOT POLITICAL GENEALOGY
….reflections of Isaac Mwanza
OVER the last few days, leading figures in the Patriotic Front orbit — particularly Brian Mundubile, Given Lubinda, and lawyer Makebi Zulu — have dragged the country into a spectacle that says more about the poverty of our political discourse than about the future of Zambia.
Instead of debating policy, governance, or how and on what basis the opposition intends to challenge the government of Hakainde Hichilema, the conversation has been reduced to political genealogy — who belonged to which party in the past and who has the “right” to claim ownership of the Patriotic Front.
That argument is not only tired; it is profoundly hypocritical.
Let us be honest about one thing: Zambian politics has never been a monastery of ideological purity. Since the return to multiparty democracy in 1991, political migration has been the rule rather than the exception. Parties have been built, abandoned, revived and recycled by the same pool of political actors.
Very few politicians in Zambia today can claim to be the original custodians of the parties they currently represent.
Take the current Vice President, W.K Mutale Nalumango, her political roots, like those of many figures now serving in government, trace back to the Movement for Multi-Party Democracy. That was the political nursery after 1990 of a whole generation of today’s leaders.
The same ecosystem also produced Makebi Zulu, former lawyer for former President Rupiah Banda and whose proximity to power in the 2016 PF adoptions is well known.
And what about Given Lubinda? He did not descend from the heavens with a Patriotic Front membership card in his hand. Like many others, he moved through different political formations before eventually joining PF once it had become politically viable.
Even Brian Mundubile, who is now being lectured about his political past, also emerged from the same broad MMD political tradition.
In truth, the story of Zambia’s political class is one of constant migration. The late Anderson Mazoka, the founding leader of the United Party for National Development, once served as an MMD branch chairman before building what would become one of Zambia’s most significant political movements.
The point is simple: political jackets change. They always have.
Which is why the current attempt to weaponise Brian Mundubile’s previous political affiliations is not only dishonest — it is politically lazy.
If changing parties disqualifies someone from political leadership, then a large portion of Zambia’s political elite would have to retire immediately.
What is even more disappointing is that these attacks are happening at a time when the opposition should be focused on rebuilding credibility and presenting a coherent national agenda.
If you ask most of these former PF leaders why they want to take over power in August 2026 from Hakainde Hichilema, you will likely discover that many have no compelling national reason beyond a longing to return to the privileges of office.
During their time in government as ministers, power came with enormous personal benefits — not just for themselves, but often for their families and political networks.
One only needs to revisit the annual declarations of assets and liabilities many of them submitted while serving as ministers; in several instances, those declarations raised more questions than answers when compared with their official incomes.
Truth be told, many who once occupied ministerial offices played a role in the debt burden that Zambia later struggled to carry — the very burden the current administration of President Hichilema has had to confront and attempt to restructure.
During those years, the illusion that poverty had disappeared was partly sustained by the free-flowing patronage within the ruling party system: money circulating through cadres, contracts awarded to politically connected individuals who lacked the capacity to execute them, and state resources treated as political spoils.
It is therefore hardly surprising that some opposition Members of Parliament today find it convenient to gravitate toward the ruling establishment — partly because their own past conduct in government continues to cast a long shadow.
Among the personalities currently jostling for influence, Brian Mundubile has, perhaps surprisingly, appeared less bitter in tone than some of his competitors. That alone does not make him the inevitable leader of the opposition, nor does it guarantee that he could defeat President Hakainde Hichilema in a national election.
But within the fractured landscape of PF politics, Brian Mundubile remains one of the more formidable contenders.
Whether he ultimately leads the opposition, or whether another figure emerges, is not for political commentators to decide. That is the business of their party members and ultimately the Zambian electorate.
What should concern the nation, however, is the quality of the debate.
Reducing politics to questions of “who came from where” is the intellectual equivalent of fighting over recycled uniforms. Most of the country’s senior politicians — across both government and opposition — have worn multiple political jackets over the past three decades.
They are, in many ways, products of the same political factory.
So instead of pretending to be ideological purists, Zambia’s political leaders should confront the real test before them: who has the ideas, the discipline and the national appeal to lead.
Until that happens, the public will continue to watch the same recycled politicians fighting over recycled narratives while the real issues facing the country remain unanswered.
I submit