Africa-Press – Zambia. Makebi Zulu has entered the PF presidential race with a message anchored on one man: Edgar Chagwa Lungu. His filing at the PF Secretariat was not just administrative. It was choreography. He arrived in black. He invoked Lungu’s name. He linked his candidacy to a “dignified burial.” He tied his political future to a dead man’s legacy.
At the centre of his speech was a single line: “I am here as a candidate, hoping to participate in this race, not for selfish ambitions, but for purposes of uniting the party… We lost our president, President Edgar Lungu and as a party, we desire that he be given a dignified burial.”
The question is simple. What exactly is the Lungu vision that Makebi wants to “actualise”? What part of that legacy forms a credible foundation for a presidential bid in 2026? Zambia voted Lungu out with a margin of more than one million votes in 2021. That vote was not accidental.
It was a clear rejection of economic mismanagement, cadre rule, corruption, intimidation, and institutional decay that defined his final years in power. If this is the legacy Makebi wants to restore, what makes him believe the country is prepared to embrace it again?
His message resonates strongly with the 1.8 million who voted for Lungu in 2021. PF’s core base hears the emotional cue. They see a loyal legal defender. They see a son protecting the memory of their father figure. Makebi knows this. His symbolism is designed to consolidate cadres, old PF elites, and the Lungu family circle. It works internally. He is building a loyal bloc inside a fractured party, and he is using grief as political adhesive.
The challenge comes when this message leaves the PF tent. Does the Lungu narrative appeal to UPND supporters who feel frustrated with the government’s performance? The answer is no. Their frustration is economic, not sentimental. Their grievances are about fuel, food prices, power shortages and broken promises. They are not nostalgic for a governance system that produced debt distress, violent cadres, national division, and a collapsing currency. They have nothing to return to in the Lungu era.
What about undecided voters? Again, the appeal is thin. Makebi is offering memory politics, not policy. He is promising to “continue what Lungu died believing in,” but he has not defined what that means in economic terms, social terms or governance terms. What is the Lungu doctrine? What did he leave unfinished that the country wants resumed? Voters choose the future, not funerals. They want a plan, not a pledge to complete the past.
The biggest strategic limitation is regional. The Lungu brand is toxic in four critical blocs armed with active voting patterns: Southern, Western, North Western and Central provinces. These regions rejected Lungu in three consecutive cycles. Makebi tying himself to the same name will not shift that arithmetic. It narrows the ticket to PF’s nostalgic strongholds and limits national reach. A candidate who campaigns on Lungu’s shoulders will inherit Lungu’s ceiling.
There is also the fundamental political contradiction. If the Lungu vision was rejected in 2021, what makes it attractive in 2026? If PF claims Zambia is suffering today, how does it argue for the revival of the system that helped produce the collapse? Makebi’s messaging asks voters to remember Lungu with affection. But the electorate remembers power cuts, debt distress, cadre intimidation, corruption cases, and a presidency that lost public trust.
Makebi has every right to honour his mentor. Loyalty is a political currency in PF. But loyalty is not a national manifesto. Zambia does not elect presidents to bury former leaders. It elects presidents to fix the future.
Until Makebi defines a value proposition beyond sentiment and funeral politics, his message will energise cadres but fail the national test. His challenge is not winning PF.
His challenge is convincing Zambia that Lungu’s unfinished business is the future they want. Only a clear programme can answer that. Not emotion. Not nostalgia. And not the politics of the coffin.
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