The PF–Tonse Alliance and the Politics of Nostalgia: When Lamentation Fails
By Farai Ruvanyathi
26th July 2025
It has become abundantly clear that the sudden jostling within the so-called PF–Tonse Alliance signals a political moment of reckoning. The alliance’s failed attempts at generating public sympathy using former President Edgar Lungu’s death have not only fallen flat but exploded spectacularly in their faces.
A Political Strategy Built on a Corpse
The Alliance’s ill-advised attempt to use President Lungu’s remains as a campaign symbol was a deeply cynical move. The public saw through the manipulation. The “corpse campaign,” spearheaded by Given Lubinda and Raphael Nakachinda, failed to resonate with a population grappling with tangible alternatives, not manufactured grief.
In what can only be described as a nationwide tour of sorrow, the Alliance turned the biblical Book of Lamentations into a playbook. But the Zambian people didn’t buy it. They responded not with tears, but with rejection, delivering electoral blows in recently held by elections, that exposed not just strategic incompetence, but national fatigue with the Lungu era and its trappings.
Factions Without a Future
With the sympathy card burned to ash, the PF–Tonse Alliance now finds itself in disarray. Leadership struggles have intensified, and with no clear ideological anchor, it’s a free-for-all. As the Americans would say: get your popcorn ready.
At the heart of the chaos lies an ethnic contradiction. Can Nakachinda and Lubinda, closely associated with the so-called “Zambezi Province”, a regional identity manufactured by PF’s own ethnic stereotyping, credibly lead a movement whose traditional stronghold lies in the Northern region?
Ethnic Arithmetic Turned on Its Head
The same ethnic formulas that the PF once weaponized to divide and marginalize others are now undermining their own ranks. The Alliance’s key figures, Kelvin Bwalya Fube, Brian Mundubile, Harry Kalaba, Binwell Mpundu, and Dan Pule, each represent diverging ambitions and regional loyalties. None have demonstrated the capacity to unify or articulate a national vision that speaks to the present-day needs of ordinary Zambians.
As the internal succession war heats up, the Alliance looks less like a political alternative and more like a theatre troupe rehearsing for a play no one wants to watch.
What Do They Stand For?
Now that the “corpse theory” has failed, what message does the PF–Tonse Alliance offer to the people of Zambia? What credible alternatives are they proposing to the economic recovery plan being pursued by President Hakainde Hichilema?
Thus far, the Alliance has distinguished itself as a coalition of self-styled social media commentators and suit-clad photo posers, men more preoccupied with image than policy. Zambians have grown accustomed to seeing neatly choreographed images of these men in suits, posing at airports, on pavements, and even in church pews, but little else.
Still Trapped in Edgar Lungu’s Shadow
None of the Alliance’s frontmen have worked to build a broad national appeal. Instead, they remain trapped in a narrow, sectarian political framework rooted in the ethnic exclusionism of the Lungu era, an era that openly left out four provinces from Cabinet appointments and pursued politics of division rather than development.
This is not a coalition of visionaries. It is a nostalgic club of the past, desperately trying to revive a legacy that the majority of Zambians have moved on from.
Zambia Deserves Better
At a time when the country is undergoing significant economic and institutional reforms under President Hichilema’s leadership, Zambians deserve a credible opposition, one that can present fresh ideas, engage in policy debates, and challenge the government with substance, not sentiment.
Unfortunately, the PF–Tonse Alliance has shown neither the capacity nor the will to be that opposition. Until it sheds its reliance on ethnic patronage, political nostalgia, and theatrics, it will remain nothing more than a hollow echo of a fading past.
• Farai Ruvanyathi is a political analyst and commentator who writes about governance, political trends, and regional affairs.
Raphael Nakacinda and given lubinda have managed to confuse and destroy PF. They are overambitious. Consequently PF and tonse alliance will go nowhere other than in graves. It’s a pity UPND won’t have a strong competitor next year because even Fred Mmembe is far from the ring. He’s not preparing anything but busy writing and posting rubbish. These men and women in opposition have failed to organize themselves. They over relied on fictious pls B. Everything has backfired and they are now stranded paving way for HH and UPND to run almost unopposed. KWENYU ✓.