⬆️ CONTEXT | The PF Factions and the Tonse Alliance Puzzle
Kelvin Kaunda, the Socialist Party’s youth chairperson, stirred the pot this yesterday when he declared on Crown TV that Mafinga MP Robert Chabinga is the only eligible candidate to lead the Tonse Alliance. His reasoning is simple: the Tonse Constitution says the Alliance’s presidential candidate must come from the PF, and the Registrar of Societies officially recognizes Chabinga as PF president. On paper, that makes him the default candidate.
The Patriotic Front does not like to hear it, but Kaunda has touched a raw nerve. Since Michael Sata’s death in 2014, the PF has rarely been a united party. Edgar Lungu’s contested rise left scars. When PF lost power in 2021, the factionalism deepened. Nomination fees for a leadership contest were collected, but the process collapsed amid allegations that money disappeared. Into that vacuum stepped Miles Sampa, who convened his own convention and declared himself party president.
That move triggered a cascade of legal battles. Eventually, the state, through the Registrar of Societies and later the Speaker of the National Assembly, recognized Robert Chabinga’s leadership. Yet on the ground, rival factions continue to claim legitimacy. Given Lubinda, Raphael Nakacinda, Miles Sampa, and others all style themselves as standard bearers, while grassroots members are left in confusion.
The contradiction lies here: PF insists it is Zambia’s largest opposition party, yet cannot agree on who leads it. Each faction accuses the other of working with or being captured by the UPND. In the meantime, Socialist Party leaders like Kaunda point to hard facts. “When you go to the Registrar of Societies today, the one being recognized as president of PF is Chabinga,” he said. That is the legal record, regardless of who rallies more supporters in the streets.
For the Tonse Alliance, this is more than an academic debate. Its constitution is clear: the PF leader becomes the Alliance’s presidential candidate. If the Registrar says Chabinga is that leader, then by the book, he is the candidate. This is why the Socialist Party is holding back. They see no clarity in an alliance that cannot settle who carries the PF mantle.
PF loyalists often portray their crisis as UPND interference. The truth is messier. The UPND may have exploited loopholes, but the internal rot predates them. The missed convention, the missing funds, the competing egos, and the lack of clear succession have hollowed PF from within. The result is a party that projects strength in numbers but shows weakness in unity.
Kelvin Kaunda’s intervention exposes what PF leaders do not want to admit: until the party resolves its factionalism, it will remain vulnerable. Whether the Socialist Party joins Tonse or not, the PF’s inability to speak with one voice threatens its relevance in 2026. The law already answers who is PF president. The question is whether the wider party and its supporters are willing to face that truth.
At The People’s Brief, our Context series unpacks the hard truths beneath political rhetoric. We separate faction from fact, leaving readers to decide where the balance of legitimacy lies.
© The People’s Brief | Context
Mr “People’s Brief”, has the Mafinga gentleman also been gifted the entire membership of The PF? How much did this cost?
Lesa tapela muminwe, apalamika fye. Indeed, Chabinga is gifted with the whole PF, whether some claim to be in some acting positions, the truth is that Chabinga is the one holding the mantle of the registered and legally set PF. The rest are just like creatures in the wind without places of aboard. They were reported to have applied to be tenants to NCP of Peter Chanda. If i were Chanda, I would just make the PF squatting tenants as my supporters and appoint Nakachinda, mundubile, mutotwe kafwaya and given lubinda as my campaign managers. Ah, PF sure! The immediate former ruling party to reduce itself to a bunch of squatters! No wonder they are behaving like wounded buffalos and sometimes like chickens without heads. And they look buffoonically foolish especially that most of them are being pursued and arrested for thievery cases. No wonder they have chosen to use every opportunity to cause confusions with a hope nullifying and freeing themselves from the many thievery cases they had committed.