🇿🇲 ANALYSIS | Who Owns Tonse? Pule Moves, PF Revolts
Hell has broken loose inside the Tonse Alliance, and what unfolded late Tuesday night marks the most consequential rupture since the death of former president Edgar Chagwa Lungu. What was designed as a unifying opposition vehicle has now descended into an open power struggle over identity, legality, succession, and control of the 2026 presidential ticket. At stake is not just leadership, but whether Tonse survives as a coherent political force or collapses under the weight of its own contradictions.
At the centre of the storm is a four-hour virtual meeting convened on January 6 by Tonse Alliance Co-Chairperson Prof. Danny Pule, which produced sweeping constitutional changes, dissolved the Patriotic Front’s formal status within the alliance, and set January 2026 as the month to elect a new chairperson and presidential candidate.
Pule’s framing is blunt: Tonse, he argues, has been “held hostage” by PF’s court battles, factionalism, and paralysis following Lungu’s death. His council resolved to recognise only the “ECL PF Political Movement”, a non-registered pressure group loyal to Lungu’s legacy, and to completely disown the PF party structure currently entangled in litigation involving Robert Chabinga.
“The Tonse Alliance has been delayed, disorganised and made to look institutionally chaotic because of PF,” Pule said, arguing that this move was the only way to honour what he described as Lungu’s “Plan B” and political wishes. In one stroke, PF was downgraded from anchor party to outsider, while its loyalists were rebranded into a movement stripped of legal standing but retained for symbolic and mobilisation value. The council further abolished exclusivity around the presidency, opening the 2026 ticket to all council members and scheduling a general congress within weeks.
It was a declaration of political urgency, but also one of war.
The resolutions go further. The concept of an anchor party has been revised downward, cutting the ECL PF Movement’s council representation from 15 to seven, redistributing power to founding and non-founding parties and civil society groups, and reshaping delegate numbers ahead of the congress.
Disciplinary authority was moved from the spokesperson’s office to a legal chairperson, two vice chairperson roles were created, and interim leadership scrapped in favour of Pule as caretaker chair. Dr. Chris Zumani Zimba was appointed the official face of the ECL PF Movement. In effect, Tonse’s internal architecture was rewritten in one night.
PF’s response was immediate and incendiary. Acting PF President and Tonse Chairperson Given Lubinda dismissed the meeting as “illegal, null and void,” accusing Pule of mischief, bad faith, and procedural sabotage.
PF insists it remains the legitimate sponsor of Edgar Lungu into Tonse and cannot be erased by what it calls a rogue virtual meeting held in violation of agreed processes.
“PF will not be reduced to a façade or treated as non-existent,” Lubinda warned, insisting that constitutional amendments can only be handled at a physical meeting scheduled for January 20.
This clash exposes a deeper fracture: Tonse was never a party, but a fragile coalition built around one man. Lungu’s death removed the glue holding together rival ambitions, unresolved mistrust, and competing readings of legitimacy. Pule’s camp argues that survival demands speed, clarity, and decisiveness. PF argues that legality, procedure, and historical centrality cannot be bypassed without collapsing the alliance’s credibility. Both sides claim fidelity to Lungu’s legacy, yet interpret it in opposite directions.
The undertones are unmistakable. This is a succession war disguised as constitutional reform. The push to elect a presidential candidate this month signals fear of irrelevance as elections approach. The demotion of PF reflects frustration with its internal decay.
PF’s rejection reflects anxiety over losing leverage, symbolism, and control of opposition space. Neither side is speaking softly anymore.
Politically, the timing is brutal. With the ruling UPND consolidating structures, expanding constituencies, and campaigning quietly on the ground, the opposition’s biggest coalition is tearing itself apart in public. The Tonse Alliance now risks becoming a courtroom project rather than a campaign machine.
Whether this shake-up produces renewal or total fragmentation will depend on whether legitimacy, unity, and urgency can be reconciled. So far, the signs point to escalation, not settlement.
What is clear is this: Tonse Alliance has crossed a line from internal disagreement into open institutional conflict. Once that happens, outcomes are rarely negotiated. They are imposed. And in politics, the side that spends its energy fighting itself rarely survives the election that follows.
© The People’s Brief | Ollus R. Ndomu