Simon Zukas was born in Lithuania in 1925 and moved with his family to Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) in July 1938. After three years military service in East Africa he studied civil engineering at the University of Cape Town from 1947 to 1950 where he became involved in student politics as a radical socialist. On returning to Northern Rhodesia Zukas opposed plans to create the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, arguing that it would disadvantage the majority black population and delay independence, and was one of the founders of the Anti-Federation Action Committee. He was detained in prison from April to December 1952 and then deported to London where he was a co-founder of the Movement for Colonial Freedom and a member of the London committee of the United National Independence Party (UNIP).

Zukas returned to Zambia at the time of independence and established an engineering consultancy firm. Disillusioned with the one party state he was a founder of the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) in 1990, was elected to Parliament and held several ministerial posts between 1991 and 1996. He returned to politics between 2001 and 2005 as a founder and chair of the Forum for Democracy and Development. He died in 2021.