Opposition need single candidate – Muhabi

Opposition need single candidate

…Zambians are clear on who they want to vote out – Muhabi

By George Zulu

THE opposition is running out of time to identify a single candidate to challenge President Hakainde Hichilema in next year’s general elections, the Zambia We Want Party (ZWWP) spokesperson Muhabi Lungu has said.

Lungu said in an ideal situation, the opposition should have by now identified a candidate ahead of the general election scheduled for next year.

“We are running out of time. In fact, I think that the ideal situation in most cases is that we should have had a clear contender maybe by May this year,” he said.

Lungu said mistrust among opposition players was working against the united opposition front agenda.

He said Zambians were clear on who they wanted to vote out of government, but the opposition was making it difficult to achieve the Zambian dream by coming up with a candidate.

“We started this project of trying to bring unity to the opposition. When we started this call, it didn’t have resonance. A lot of people were still thinking that, no, they would be able to do it on their own. And I think that it has taken constant discussion over the last two years that has brought us where we are. And I think that as of maybe six months ago, I think that almost all of the political players, the Zambia We Want, the Socialist Party, ULP, New Heritage, even the Patriotic Front, I think all of us concluded that we need to work together,” he said.

He said failure by leaders to trust one another had led to the delay for a united opposition to challenge the United Party for National Development (UPND).

“…to be very honest, is that we have been unable to develop sufficient trust among each other about the capacity for us to come up with a mechanism to select that ticket and to select people around the ticket, because we don’t only want to come up with a candidate. We also want to come up with a good team, and we also want to come up with a clear policy framework, which we can have so that by God’s grace and our own planning and fighting, we win government, and there is no dispute as to what it is we want to do. For example, we don’t want to start debating the constitutional issue again,” Lungu said.

He said efforts were still alive for political parties to come together and field a single candidate in the 2026 general elections.

He said so far, about 10 opposition political parties were meeting to resolve the outstanding issues surrounding the united front.

“I’m just from a meeting in which there were about five of us political parties discussing how to take this issue to the next stage. Last week, we had almost 10 political parties in the same room discussing modalities of particular frameworks for us getting together in terms of the manifesto, in terms of the mechanism, in terms of a social contract, and so on. So, we are working on it, and I’m pretty sure that hopefully by the end of September, we will be able to say something that either comes up with a candidate or come up with a timetable which will say by such and such a time we will have one,” he said.

He said time was running away, but was hopeful that before the end of the year, a candidate would be found for the United Front and be able to garner support from Zambians.

“So, I’m quite optimistic. I really am. Of course, it’s getting late. As I said, we should have had one by May, but if we can try and target the end of September, maybe even early October or mid-October, we will still have the time to be able to get that team with that ticket to try and go throughout the country and be able to convince people. And at that point, we will have a contender,” he said.

Lungu said the only way the UPND and Hichilema would be defeated next year was to come up with a formidable opposition and not a fragmented one, as was the case.

“The most feasible path to defeating the current government is if we have a unified opposition, which will be able to have, I think, a single ticket would be better,” he said.

Meanwhile, Lungu says some selfish individuals were working against the unity of the opposition and threatened to name and shame them soon.

He said he would soon start telling Zambians that certain opposition political parties were not interested in working with others.

“…the other thing that makes it difficult for us to have total unanimity is that there are just some political players who are so selfish that they’ve already decided in their mind that, come what may, they will be the candidate. We are going to make them known to the people that they are not interested in an alliance. Maybe we can reach up to 70 percent of the main political parties. But I have vowed to anyone not to cooperate for purposes of the fact that they are being selfish. We will expose them. I really don’t care whether they will dislike me, they will hate me, they will send their cadres to beat me or whatever. I don’t care. But I think that the importance of the next election is so important that those who are uncooperative because they have selfish reasons and they can’t put their personal interest ahead of the national interest of the people, they will be exposed. I can guarantee you and I can promise you that I’ll be one of the first people to come out and go after them because for me, I’m not interested in the presidents,” he said.