By Chiti Manga
As Zambia inches closer to another high-stakes general election with unspoken ethnic undertone only witnessed during the first republic (1964-1973, the governing UPND would be dangerously naïve to treat every new opposition realignment as innocent political pluralism.
History, patterns of behaviour, and recent events all point to one uncomfortable but unavoidable conclusion: any North/East alliance—no matter how rebranded, repackaged, or baptised as “new politics”—must be approached with maximum caution. 
The latest red flag is the endorsement of Makebi Zulu, a PF-sponsored candidate, by New Congress Party (NCP) leader Peter Chanda. On the surface, this is presented as routine coalition politics. In reality, it fits a long-running script: the PF-linked actors cycling through new vehicles in a desperate attempt to claw back power after electoral rejection.
The UPND should not be deceived. This is not renewal; it is recycling.
For years, the North/East political axis has dominated Zambia’s post-independence power structure. When that dominance was decisively broken by the UPND in 2021, it did not produce introspection or ideological reform. Instead, it triggered what can only be described as entrenched Tongaphobia—an anxious resistance to a political order no longer centred on the North-Eastern bloc.This fear has worn many disguises. Sometimes, it parades as constitutional purism. Other times, it cloaks itself in intellectual superiority, moral outrage, or manufactured victimhood. Most recently, it has re-emerged through political opposition to progressive reforms such as Bill 7, where legal objections were amplified by unmistakable ethnic undertones.
The pattern is telling. The loudest and most unyielding resistance to the UPND-led reforms continues to emanate from the same regional and political network that once considered State power an inherited entitlement for the politically anointed regional grouping. The question, therefore, is not whether alliances are forming—but why, and to what end.
Enter Makebi Zulu.
Zulu is being marketed as a fresh face, yet his political oxygen is unmistakably PF and MMD. More troubling is the manner of his political ascent. The lawyer-turned-politician has leveraged the death of former president Edgar Chagwa Lungu as a springboard into national ambition. This is not statesmanship; it is spectacle. It cheapens both mourning and leadership, and it reveals a political culture willing to exploit grief for gain.
That Zulu has been embraced by the PF structures and now endorsed by Peter Chanda’s NCP should set off alarms in the UPND headquarters. This is not a clean break from the past. It is a PF “born-again” project—another attempt to launder old politics through a new label.
The UPND must remember: every PF rebirth has followed the same arc. First, public contrition. Then, strategic alliances. Finally, a return to the old playbook of ethnic mobilisation and institutional sabotage. Names change—Mundubile today, Lubinda tomorrow—but the instinct remains the same.
The North/East alliance has exhausted every trick in the book to bounce back into power: factional splits, parallel councils, constitutional obstruction, and now sentimental politics built around the dead. The endorsement of Zulu is simply the latest manoeuvre.This is why the UPND cannot afford half-measures. Political niceties will not protect a reform agenda under sustained assault. The party must keep its iron gloves on.
Being wary does not mean being tribal. It means being honest about history and alert to patterns. It means recognising that some alliances are not about national unity but about restoring a lost hierarchy adopted from the pre-colonial period through the military hegemony of the North and East. It means understanding that “opposition unity” is often code for elite reunification against a perceived outsider presidency.
The UPND’s strength has always been clarity of purpose: economic reform, institutional rebuilding, and the rejection of ethnic entitlement. That clarity must not be diluted by false reconciliations or sentimental appeals.
Zambia’s democracy does not need recycled power brokers or funeral-driven candidacies. It needs accountability, fresh ideas, and leaders who rise on merit—not proximity to the grave of a former president.
Peter Chanda’s withdrawal and endorsement of Makebi Zulu should therefore be read not as generosity but as coordination. It is a signal that the PF-aligned forces are regrouping, not reforming. The lesson for the UPND is simple: trust reforms, not rebrands.
If history teaches us anything, it is that power lost by entitlement is rarely surrendered gracefully. The regional alliances are not plotting Zambia’s future; they are fighting their own past. The UPND must stay alert, stay firm, and stay unfooled.
