Africa-Press – Zambia. FORMER President Edgar Lungu’s political advisor, Chris Zumani Zimba, has refuted claims that he wants to change the anchor party in the Tonse Alliance, saying it is the members themselves who are proposing that the chairmanship and presidential candidacy be opened to a vote.
And Zimba has clarified that the PF, as a party, is not formally part of the Tonse Alliance. Instead, he says what exists is the ECL PF Movement, a grouping of PF members loyal to former president Edgar Lungu.
Recently, PF acting president Given Lubinda said there was talk within the alliance suggesting that the PF should not remain the anchor party, a position he said contradicted previously agreed arrangements.
Speaking on Prime TV’s Oxygen of Democracy, Zimba explained that the Tonse Alliance was initially created as a political vehicle for Lungu, after the UKA concept failed to gain traction.
“In the Tonse Alliance, there is no PF as a political party. What is in the Tonse Alliance is the ECL PF Movement. The reason is very simple, when we were forming the Tonse Alliance, I am the chief drafter of the Tonse Alliance constitution. I am the initiator of the Tonse Alliance as a political organization for President Lungu and his like-minded supporters. Sean Tembo is the person I worked with to draft the Tonse Alliance constitution and the Tonse Alliance concept, the logo, the motto, the objective, name it. When Sean Tembo and I finalized that this is an alternative vehicle for ECL, that’s when we presented it to him in July last year,” he said.
“Because the UKA concept had failed ECL, Sean Tembo and I agreed that we needed to create a different alliance specifically for ECL so as to navigate the Chabinga PF politics. We didn’t put PF in the final constitution. ECL said, ‘no, no, no, let it be a movement of PF members, councillors, MPs, and council chairpersons loyal to me.’ Those should be the members of the alliance in Tonse. That’s where the concept of the ECL PF Movement comes from. It is about the MPs in PF, councillors, chairpersons, and supporters of ECL countrywide, loyal to ECL within PF, those are the members in the Tonse Alliance.”
Zimba added that according to the Tonse constitution, both the chairmanship and presidency belong to Lungu as an individual.
“If you read this constitution, the chairmanship and the presidency belong to an individual, it’s Dr Edgar Chagwa Lungu; you read his name there. The people that were joining the Tonse Alliance, most of them I interviewed. It’s me who was vetting them; they were joining not because of me, I was the secretariat, that’s what people don’t like. I was the lead consultant and the person handling the secretariat of the Tonse Alliance. It never existed; I initiated it. I was in prison, what were they doing, if you ask them? I came out of prison, I initiated this project for ECL and the Zambians. Now today, they want to fight me, saying ‘no, in fact, he is an outsider.’ The truth is, even in the PF Movement where I belong, SG Nakacinda was interviewed by me. Professor Pule was interviewed by me because I was at the centre of the secretariat,” Zimba said.
He noted that many members joined the alliance because Lungu was the chairman and presidential candidate. With his passing, some members now want these positions opened to a vote.
“When these people were joining, FDD, KBF and the team Zambia Must Prosper, PeP, they were joining because, in the constitution, the chairman was Edgar Chagwa Lungu, the presidential candidate was Edgar Chagwa. That has to be scored. Now that the man they came for is no more, many of them are saying, ‘let’s open the chairmanship and presidential candidacy to us members so that we’ll have a say, we vote.’ And PF are saying, ‘no, Zimba wants to change the anchor party.’ It’s about the chairmanship and the presidency. If you read the roadmap which we shared for the general congress, we indicated that if the general congress would amend that, it means other Tonse members like FDD, Zambia Must Prosper, Professor Pule’s party, it means they can also participate in electing the president,” he stated.
“That is not the correct position, that I want to change, it is the stakeholders. The alliance is a membership alliance. PF is just a major stakeholder, and in all the decision-making programs of the alliance, going by this constitution, PF has more than 60 percent representation. So if we have to have elections either in the Council of Leaders or at the general congress, PF, when we are united, we can’t lose, that you have to keep constant. It doesn’t matter whatever candidate others might present; as long as PF says Honourable Lubinda is our candidate, we win. The reason why other stakeholders, not me, have engaged me and said, ‘now that the man we came for, ECL, has gone as chairman and candidate, we want to vote on the next candidate and chairman.’”
He added that while PF, as the majority stakeholder, had the right to reject the proposal, it needed to still consider the views of other members and allow a vote.
“So it is a proposal from other members of the alliance. It’s not me, it’s not Sean Tembo. Ask KBF, that’s the position he holds. There are many. Mumbi Phiri, yes. If you talk about Sean Tembo himself, yes. So, many stakeholders are saying, ‘look, we joined the Tonse Alliance because we had a candidate in mind called ECL for 2026, and we had a chairman we subscribed to called ECL. Now that he has died, let PF open this at the general congress so that we also vote.’ That is the proposal from the other members. The PF has the right to deny because it has the majority stake and numbers even at the general congress. Even in the Council of Leaders, if you go through this list, most of those council leaders are from where? The PF. They have that power to say, ‘oh, this is what you want? But as the ECL PF Movement, let’s vote, we are saying no.’ Then it means it won’t change,” Zimba said.
“It doesn’t matter how anybody would push it, it won’t change. But the fact is that it’s a member alliance, meaning we subscribe members; we should be able to be open to their views and subject them before the table for a vote. And I can assure you that once we are united as PF, we will definitely win, and that clause will not be amended; it will remain the way it is, that the anchor party, the chairman, and the candidate will come from the ECL PF Movement.”
When asked why the alliance could not simply let PF choose a leader to assume Lungu’s role, Zimba said that remained his preferred model.
“That is my preferred model. Do you know the reason why the Tonse Alliance general congress was put on 29 November? We said PF must first go in October–November to the national convention; let them choose a leader, because it is PF that is divided, that has brought divisions also in the Tonse Alliance,” he responded.
He added that he could not destroy PF and Tonse, as they were Lungu’s legacies, and his job was to help Lubinda secure Lungu’s legacy and vision in the alliance.
“I cannot destroy PF, I cannot destroy the Tonse Alliance because these are legacies of ECL. My job is to help Honourable Lubinda. My main homework is to help the acting president to secure the legacy and the vision of ECL in the alliance, because he is inheriting an office which was occupied by Dr Edgar Chagwa Lungu.
So, I went to his house last month to try to help him, to say, ‘look, this is what he left, pick it up from here.’ If he believes that what Edgar Chagwa Lungu left is not part of his legacy and he wants to create his new chapter and his new page, there, maybe that’s where we will be having these tugs of war,” said Zimba.
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