EMMANUEL ‘Jay’ Banda has announced his candidature for Petauke Central Constituency.
Addressing thousands of residents on Saturday afternoon, Banda said he was standing as an independent candidate because he was representing the will of the people of the constituency.
Banda had sought to be adopted as the PF candidate for Petauke Central for the upcoming elections, but the ruling party instead readopted previous incumbent member of parliament Dora Siliya, who was former information minister.
Banda revealed that PF secretary general Davies Mwila had told him that he would not be adopted as Petauke Central candidate as long as he [Mwila] was at the helm of party.
Banda however, said the same way Mwila himself lost to an independent candidate in Chipili Constituency in 2016 was the same way Siliya would lose the Petauke Central seat to him.
“I know what you were waiting for is that I should come back from Lusaka with the PF adoption certificate. But now because of some stingy people who do not love President Edgar Chagwa Lungu for his developmental agenda… He told me when we were opening Edgar Chagwa Lungu School in Simambumbu village that as long as he is party secretary general, I would not be adopted on PF ticket. But I told him that my works will take me to Parliament and not you. This person who was telling me this is PF secretary general [Mwila]. He told me that you will not go to Parliament when I was seated next to him and Dora that I don’t look good on my face,” Banda said. “Now, I answered him that here in Petauke we love each other. I asked him, ‘where do you come from?’ He said ‘I come from Luapula’. I further asked him on whether he stood as MP to which he answered in affirmative. Then I asked him again on who won in his constituency. He told me that an independent candidate won. I told him that even ‘us here, this one that you want here will lose to the independent candidate the same way you lost a seat to the independent candidate’.”
And Banda said his campaign symbol would be a tractor to symbolise development for Petauke Central.
He said it was possible for an independent MP to develop a constituency, citing what Masauso Tembo had done for Sinda Constituency.