UNITY IN ZAMBIA’S OPPOSITION: POSSIBLE, YES. PROBABLE, NOT WITHOUT A HARD RESET.
By Brian Matambo | Lusaka, Zambia
As Zambia edges toward the 2026 presidential election, the opposition’s greatest challenge is not the incumbent. It is itself.
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Calls for unity have become the safest language in Zambian politics. They offend no one. They inspire applause. They also change nothing unless followed by discipline, structure, and sacrifice. The recent turbulence within the Tonse Alliance and the Patriotic Front has exposed a deeper truth: unity is not failing because Zambians reject it. It is failing because political actors continue to treat it as a slogan rather than a system.
The contradiction is now visible to the public. The Tonse Alliance has moved to expel the Patriotic Front from its ranks, while at the same time prominent PF figures continue to operate in Tonse-adjacent political spaces without consequence. This inconsistency has eroded trust and reinforced the perception that rules are applied selectively. Coalitions do not collapse only because of ideology. They collapse when fairness becomes negotiable.
The internal PF drama has not helped. The incarceration of Raphael Nakacinda has reshaped internal power dynamics and removed a key organiser at a critical moment. In politics, absence creates opportunity, but rarely stability. What followed has been a renewed scramble for control, influence, and legitimacy, with consequences spilling beyond the party into the wider opposition project.
Leadership ambition has further complicated the picture. Given Lubinda, in public reflections, has made it clear that he views the presidency not as a negotiable aspiration but as a personal mandate. Ambition in itself is not a flaw. Politics without ambition is charity. The problem arises when ambition becomes incompatible with coalition building. A leader who struggles to unite a party or an alliance cannot credibly promise to unite a country.
Others stand at a crossroads. Chishimba Kambwili has demonstrated political instinct before and understands timing, alignment, and consequence. Whether he applies that instinct now may define the remainder of his political career. Miles Sampa, by contrast, remains an unpredictable variable in an environment that can no longer afford miscalculations. In a compressed electoral cycle, errors are not corrected. They are punished.
Against this backdrop, Makebi Zulu has called for unity. The appeal is aligned with public sentiment and reflects what many Zambians say openly: the opposition must come together if it hopes to dislodge Hakainde Hichilema in 2026. But unity by appeal alone is insufficient. History shows that coalitions succeed only when guided by enforceable rules, transparent processes, and shared risk.
Winning in 2026 will require more than arithmetic. It will require judgment.
First, the opposition must choose a candidate who is legally resilient. This is not paranoia. It is realism. A politically exposed candidate with unresolved legal vulnerabilities offers the state an opportunity to shift the contest from the ballot to the courtroom. That is not strategy. That is negligence.
Second, the next flag bearer must represent continuity with the positive legacy of Edgar Chagwa Lungu while decisively breaking with the excesses that damaged the Patriotic Front before 2021. Zambians remember humility, accessibility, and faith consciousness. They also remember violence, indiscipline, and the failure to confront tribal rhetoric decisively. Any candidate who carries the latter baggage will struggle to persuade voters that a new chapter has truly begun.
Third, the opposition must present a visible generational renewal. This is not an argument against experience. It is an argument for balance. Zambia’s Parliament and Cabinet cannot continue to look like closed clubs. Younger leaders and women must be elevated to the front line, not as decoration, but as decision-makers. Senior figures must then accept the harder task of mentoring, stabilising, and guiding rather than dominating. That is how political cultures renew themselves.
Fourth, the policy offering must be credible and national in scope. Zambians are listening for commitments on resource ownership, economic sovereignty, diplomacy that restores Zambia’s non-aligned posture, and governance that respects the separation of powers. They also expect consistency in upholding Zambia’s identity as a Christian nation, not as a slogan, but through respect for the church and completion of national commitments such as the National House of Prayer..
Finally, the opposition must reform how it chooses leaders. Backroom consensus has failed repeatedly. The moment calls for an open, structured, and nationally visible process. Public debates. Clear qualification criteria. Transparent rules. Binding commitments to support the eventual winner. Without this, unity will remain performative and fragile.
So, is unity possible in Zambian politics ahead of 2026? Yes. But only if the opposition accepts a hard truth: unity is not declared. It is engineered.
Until personalities submit to process, and ambition yields to structure, the opposition will continue to rehearse unity while practicing division. In elections, that contradiction is fatal.
And so I propose we take all the opposition aspiring presidential candidates to a public widely televised, national, or even global debate. I will provide the production equipment. Uncle Frank will do the interviews. And we all the Zambians at home and abroad will help us choose the flag bear. And the rest must support the winner or be driven into political oblivions.