Africa-Press – Zambia. REFLECTION | Makebi Zulu: Does He Deserve Election?
Few political figures in Zambia’s current cycle have risen as abruptly, and as controversially, as Makebi Zulu. His ascent has not followed the slow grind of constituency building or policy craftsmanship. It has followed crisis. Courtrooms. Funerals. Power vacuums. And the unresolved emotional afterlife of Edgar Chagwa Lungu.
This is both his advantage and his burden.
Makebi Zulu’s public visibility today is not anchored in what he delivered as a Member of Parliament for Malambo between 2016 and 2021, nor in any enduring policy legacy from his time as Eastern Province Minister. Those years passed without leaving a defining political footprint. His relevance now flows from something else entirely: proximity to grief, power, and a wounded political base searching for a saviour.
The prolonged burial impasse of former President Lungu changed Makebi Zulu’s trajectory. Acting as the family’s lawyer and public voice, he stepped into a space heavy with emotion, loyalty, and unresolved national memory. In that vacuum, he spoke with certainty and moral urgency, positioning himself as defender of dignity against the state. For many younger PF supporters, this posture resonated. They read courage. They read defiance. They read destiny.
Others read something darker.
To a significant section of the public, the optics were unsettling. The body of a former Head of State remained frozen in South Africa while Makebi Zulu transitioned seamlessly from legal advocacy into open presidential ambition. What should have been closure became choreography. What should have been mourning became messaging. The line between legal duty and political leverage blurred, and the backlash was real enough that Makebi Zulu later found himself explaining, justifying, and recalibrating in public.
This episode gave him national name recognition. It also permanently attached ethical questions to his candidacy.
Since then, his politics have taken on a distinctly populist and quasi-messianic tone. Surrounded by figures like Godfridah Sumaili, a former religious affairs minister, and drawing heavily on faith-infused language, Makebi increasingly frames himself as a besieged but righteous figure. In interviews, he often speaks as a David facing a corrupt Goliath, invoking moral struggle more than economic strategy, divine justice more than institutional design.
This rhetoric is not accidental. It taps into what remains of Lungu’s perceived religious and spiritual constituency, a segment of the electorate that blends faith, grievance, and nostalgia. It is effective with a base that feels wronged and abandoned. It is far less convincing to voters asking practical questions about jobs, debt, food prices, and governance.
Politically, Makebi Zulu has moved across collapsing structures rather than building one. He filed interest to contest the PF presidency, later signalled willingness to step aside for opposition unity, then accepted nomination as the New Congress Party’s presidential candidate. Taken together, it paints a picture not of ideological clarity, but of tactical navigation through chaos.
Supporters call this pragmatism. Critics call it opportunism.
This is where the broader landscape matters. Zambia’s 2026 race is shaping into a contest between three types of actors: pragmatists consolidating state power, populists mobilising anger and symbolism, and dark horses hoping confusion creates opportunity. Makebi Zulu currently sits between the latter two. He is not yet a system-builder. He is not yet a national organiser. He is a figure riding emotional currents in a fragmented opposition space.
His strengths are undeniable. He is legally sharp. He understands constitutional process. He is articulate, combative, and comfortable under pressure. In a country where legal frameworks increasingly shape political outcomes, that matters. His parliamentary and ministerial experience gives him institutional literacy many outsiders lack.
But elections are not won on literacy alone.
Makebi Zulu has not demonstrated sustained grassroots mobilisation since leaving Parliament in 2021. He has not tested his appeal in a national election. He has not articulated a coherent economic vision beyond moral critique. His public record still carries unresolved baggage, including documented disputes with the Law Association of Zambia and the reputational drag of operating inside PF’s ongoing implosion.
Ambition is not in doubt. Capacity remains unproven.
So does he deserve election?
The record suggests a candidate whose visibility has outpaced his base, whose symbolism has outrun his substance, and whose moment has been manufactured by crisis rather than built through service. That does not mean his political journey ends here. It means it is premature.
Zambian politics has seen many such figures before: charismatic, aggrieved, convinced history has chosen them. Some mature into leaders. Many burn out once emotion meets arithmetic.
Come August 2026, voters will not be electing a lawyer, a spokesman, or a symbolic heir to unresolved grief. They will be electing a president.
For now, Makebi Zulu looks less like a consolidator of power and more like a beneficiary of disorder. And in electoral politics, disorder is a ladder that rarely holds long enough to reach the top.
Next in The Candidates: Populists, pragmatists, and the dark horses redefining Zambia’s 2026 battle.
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