LUBINDA NOT A RECOGNISED LEADER TO MAKE PF DECISIONS – MPANKATA
PF faction National Chairperson Emmanuel Mpankata has questioned which party Acting President Given Lubinda is making decisions for, which are in the best interest of the members.
Mpankata says Lubinda has no control of the party, stating that Robert Chabinga is the one making decisions for the party.
Meanwhile, Mpika PF Member of Parliament Francis Kapyanga says he will support and rally behind Lubinda as he makes efforts to unite the party and foster reconciliation.
On Monday, Lubinda said members should not be worried as he had not made any decision that is not in the best interest of the party.
This followed his decision to drop former PF Secretary General Davies Mwila, acting Secretary General Brenda Nyirenda and Mpankanta from the central committee. Lubinda also removed party provincial chairpersons Chomba Chipili, Christopher Shakafuswa, Abyud Kawangu and Tombi Tombi.
Reacting to this in an interview, Monday, Mpankata said Lubinda was not legally recognised as PF President, so he could not claim to be making decisions in the best interest of the party.
“He said he made decisions in the best interest of the party. Which party? The PF party, a party which has no locus standi to gather, not even hold a rally? He’s claiming this is in the best interest of which party, which doesn’t even have authority to go and conduct internal party elections? That’s my question. Is PF allowed to gather? Is PF allowed to conduct its party internal elections freely? No. Chabinga is busy making decisions, and they are binding. Who’s recognised at the Registrar of Societies? Is it Given Lubinda? No, it’s not Given Lubinda who is recognised, so which party is he talking about? He should avoid going to the press, when you have internal matters, solve them internally. It’s really a joke.
Anyway, he has made a decision, but at the right time, decisions will be made by all affected members. At the right time, we’ll make decisions on the way forward. We’ll soon announce the way forward. The party is in the hands of Chabinga, I think I can just end there,” said Mpankata.
On the other hand, Kapyanga said he would support decisions that were in the best interest of the party.
“We will support decisions that are in the best interest of the party and we will continue [promoting] unity amongst ourselves, and we will continue fighting that we get back the party from the state capture. We will support every one of our leaders who are doing it in the best interest, but of course, we may not be in a position to support decisions that are emotionally made and which we think that may not help us as a movement. In case there could be such a thing of any one of our leaders making decisions out of emotions. We take a position that we support our acting president, and we rally behind him as he makes efforts to unite the party and foster reconciliation, if any,” he said.
“That we shall continue doing until such a time when the party elects new leaders, and that is what every one of us wants; we want to go to the convention. The convention we must go and we must go now, to go and elect new leaders, and we shall rally behind the person who’ll be elected from the convention, regardless, for as long as that person is our loyal member of the party. We shall rally behind the one that will be elected at the convention. All we want is someone getting the mandate from the people, and that person will be supported and will hit the ground running in mobilising for 2026. We are convinced that PF is needed to continue adding value to our democracy as a country”.
Kapyanga added that he hoped the party would resolve its differences as soon as possible so that they could hold the convention and elect new leaders.
“There is a proposal to postpone the convention, but the decision to hold a convention was arrived at by the Central Committee, so it calls for the decision to postpone the convention to be made by the Central Committee. I hear some of our leaders met yesterday (Sunday), and in their own wisdom, they proposed that the convention might be postponed to a later date to allow other salient issues to get addressed. If I were to comment as Francis Robert Kapyanga, who could not be a member of PF, I would have loved that the convention proceeds, because remember, we’ve been through this since 2021, ever since we lost elections, and our members have always called for us to hold a convention,” said Kapyanga.
“But when you have issues that need to be addressed, I think it’s just important that those issues are addressed. I hope and trust that these issues will be addressed in the shortest possible time and allow the convention to proceed unhindered. Once a leader of their choice is elected, every member of the Patriotic Front will have the zeal to go flat out and mobilise the party. We have always resolved our issues as PF.
The only challenge we may face is the state involvement in our issues, like where some of our members have been sponsored to cause confusion in our party. Even now, we believe that we’ll resolve our issues and move as a united team. I can only hope that the state will remove its hand from the PF issues”.
News Diggers
PF is in a disbandment mode, it is there for everyone to see. There is nothing left of it. The elective convention is a far fetched dream with more than ten aspiring candidates others in exile. Meanwhile UPND is busy with grassroot dynamics. Before they realise it all green will be red.