By Chiti Manga
Saboi Imboela’s observation that the Patriotic Front (PF) will destroy any political alliance it joins is not only acute; it is painfully accurate.
The recent expulsion of PF from the Tonse Alliance did not come as a shock to anyone who has followed Zambia’s opposition politics with even casual interest. It was sad, yes—but expected. The PF’s long, documented habit of importing its internal chaos, arrogance, and factional wars into collective platforms has repeatedly proven that it is structurally incapable of alliance politics. 
Alliances are built on humility, compromise, and mutual respect. The PF has demonstrated none of these qualities. As Imboela correctly argues, alliances exist precisely because no single party—big or small—can govern alone. Coalitions are meant to aggregate strengths, not to enthrone one party as overlord, while others are treated as junior appendages. Yet the PF enters alliances with the mindset of a former ruling party that believes its past dominance entitles it to present control. That attitude poisons cooperation from day one.
From the United Kwacha Alliance (UKA) to Tonse, the pattern has been the same. The PF insists on deciding leadership, dictating candidates, monopolising strategic decisions, and publicly undermining partners it deems “smaller.” This behaviour is not partnership; it is political bullying. It ignores a basic truth Imboela rightly highlights: numbers alone do not win elections. Grassroots presence, credibility, discipline, and trust matter—and many smaller parties possess these assets in abundance.
What PF consistently misreads is that alliances are not rescue boats for failing giants. They are negotiated platforms where every partner brings something valuable to the table. When PF chooses to focus on the perceived weaknesses of others while loudly advertising its own supposed strength, it creates resentment and paralysis. That is why alliances with PF are not merely unstable—they are doomed at birth.
The Tonse Alliance’s current strain illustrates this reality. While coalitions everywhere face challenges, Tonse’s difficulties have been amplified by the PF’s internal disarray and power struggles. The absence of clear rules, compounded by the PF’s refusal to submit to collective discipline, has turned what should be a united front into a theatre of suspicion and counter-manoeuvring.
Smaller parties understandably fear marginalisation, while the public sees yet another opposition formation unable to manage itself, let alone a country.
Nowhere is the PF’s unsuitability for alliances clearer than in its own internal warfare. A party that cannot resolve its leadership questions internally has no moral or organisational capacity to coexist peacefully with other parties. The ongoing chaos surrounding the treatment of Brian Mundubile is a case in point. Former PF secretary general Davies Mwila’s charge against Given Lubinda—ordering him to withdraw the expulsion or exculpatory letters issued to Mundubile and others—exposes a party at war with its own constitution.
Mwila’s intervention was not trivial. He reminded PF members that when there is a vacancy in the presidency, the party constitution demands a general conference and the suspension of all disciplinary actions to allow open participation. Instead of unity, the PF has chosen purges. Instead of order, it has chosen factional decrees. These are not small administrative errors; they are symptoms of a party that thrives on conflict and public embarrassment.
This is the PF that opposition alliances are expected to trust? This is the PF that partners should hand over collective decision-making to? To do so would be political self-harm. Alliances cannot function when one partner is permanently fighting itself, leaking its dirty linen to the public, and using disciplinary letters as weapons in succession battles.
Contrast this with the UPND Alliance. As Felix Mutati aptly put it, “We don’t fight.” That statement is not propaganda; it is an observable fact. The UPND Alliance operates with clarity of leadership, respect for structure, and discipline in public communication. Differences, where they exist, are resolved internally. There are no daily press conferences airing grievances, no contradictory directives, and no public suspensions designed to humiliate rivals.
The UPND’s alliance partners understand that unity is not the absence of ambition but the management of it. They recognise one captain, one direction, and a shared national objective. That is why the alliance remains focused on development and service delivery, not endless internal drama. It is why the UPND alliance presents stability while the PF-centred coalitions collapse under the weight of ego and entitlement.
Saboi Imboela is, therefore, right to warn that alliances are better off without the PF. Until the PF learns humility, respects constitutions, disciplines itself, and stops exporting its dysfunction, it will remain a liability to any coalition it joins.
Zambia does not need alliances that fight themselves in public. It needs partnerships that work quietly, purposefully, and for the common good. On that score, the PF has failed the test—again.
