Africa-Press – Zambia. SOCIALIST Party Leader Dr Fred M’membe says the United Opposition Front has disintegrated due to failure of choosing a flag bearer.
Dr M’membe says the disagreements surrounding the choosing of a flag bearer became ‘nasty’ in the alliance.
The alliance was comprised of his party, the Tonse Alliance, UNIP, UKA and other opposition.
Speaking when he appeared on Prime TV’s Oxygen of Democracy, Monday, Dr M’membe said although the opposition met to choose one candidate for the Chawama parliamentary seat, they failed to agree on a candidate.
Asked about the delay in the United Opposition Front choosing a presidential candidate, Dr M’membe said the alliance had disintegrated, citing disagreements in choosing a flagbearer.
“That formation has disintegrated, its no longer there, it was going under the unofficial name of United Opposition Front. Its disintegrated, other formations have come up and so on; including PF, Tonse were part of the United Front. Those who were in UKA came in the United Front but has since disintegrated over the same issues I was mentioning. Primarily, it’s even how to choose a flag bearer, when to choose a flag bearer, how to choose that flag bearer and so on.
There were disagreements and those disagreements became nasty but also what you must realise [is that], opposition unity is desired by the Zambian people, its being sought by the opposition political parties themselves but there are also other people in society who do not want that unity,” Dr M’membe said.
“We are not part of Tonse but we are part of the opposition, and because we are part of the opposition, we have to cooperate with other members of the opposition. Yes, you saw me in Chawama, we had a meeting which was called by honourable Chishimba Kambwili to try and field one candidate in Chawama.
We tried to cooperate to field one candidate, it didn’t work out. We honoured our part of the deal to cooperate and we decided to support the Tonse candidate under FDD in Chawama and that’s why you saw me in Chawama. For the purpose of trying to move forward with unity, someone has to give in, we compromised. We are ready to subordinate ourselves to the collective good”.
Dr M’membe explained that the opposition’s unity ahead of 2026 was a happenstance, rather than a strategic alliance built on strong principles.
“I’ve never heard any human being, at least one who is sane say, ‘I don’t want unity’. We want unity, human beings are not solitary creatures, we usually band up for certain causes that we seek or we pursue. Opposition unity is a necessity but its not only opposition that is required. For us to move forward as a nation, we need unity of all our people.
The challenges we face are huge, one group of our society cannot deal with those challenges on their own, that’s why even the leadership of this country; we in the Socialist Party are saying we can’t continue like this. To unite it means we have to learn how to negotiate with others, we’ll need to learn how to compromise with others, we’ll need to learn how to arrive at some consensus with others and all that requires give and take,” he noted.
“It requires trust and that trust must be built, it doesn’t come like that. Trust comes out of working together to solve certain problems together, you build that trust, with trust you have increased cooperation. So, we the opposition are facing a challenge. A fragmented opposition will not be able to deal with the challenges of changing government. The unity that we are seeking for the 2026 election is not a strategic unity, it’s a happenstance unity. And happenstance unity is not easy to achieve, its not usually on very strong principles [because] it’s unity to get something done, to get something to happen.
It’s a happenstance, you want something to happen, its not strategic alliance which is anchored on very strong principles. But if there’s a national agenda that is put before all these other things, it becomes much easier to agree because when you have a national agenda, you see clearly what needs to be done and you look among yourselves who is the best person to deal with this or that”.
He added that his journey of getting into an alliance had not been easy.
“Personal ambition, [and] personal agenda is driven much to the background. What we have in these electoral pacts is personal agenda(s) and ambition at the fore and that’s not easy to deal with. And especially where people believe the next elections will be so easy to achieve, whoever stands even if it’s a frog will win. When people start to believe such things, it’s difficult to convince anybody that they can’t get it, they can’t be the presidential candidates, they can’t be the running mates [and] it becomes a casino. [A casino] where everybody goes to the casino to gamble, this one is coming with K1,000, this one coming with K100, the one who is getting in the casino with a K100 wants to get out of the casino with more than the one who went with K1,000, that gambling and its acceptable in gambling,” said Dr M’membe.
“But to bring that order to political leadership, it becomes a bit more complicated. To convince somebody who is coming in with K1,000 to go with less than somebody who has come with K100, it becomes very complicated. How do you value what each person is bringing? There are so many issues that arise, I form a party today and tomorrow I come to the table for alliances, I want to be treated the same way and its agreed everybody is the same.
I want also to be the presidential candidate although I just registered my party yesterday, so others will say we have been and we have structures. But the person who just formed his party will say, ‘no, bring the proof of those structures, how many MPs do you have’, and so on. You find they can’t agree. We have been on this path for over a year of trying to get into alliances but its not easy”.
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