By Patson Chilemba
Opposition alliance chairperson Charles Milupi says he stands by his recent statement that alliance partners were facing difficulties agreeing on the electoral pact due to insistence by some members that “if you want to work with me, you must work under me.”
But alliance member, National Democratic Congress (NDC) leader Chishimba Kambwili, said alliance partners have not reached the stage where they have completely disagreed, saying rushing to the press when matters were still under discussion was what usually killed alliances.
Speaking with Daily Revelation, Milupi said he stood by what he said in the story he gave to this media organisation recently, but had only a problem with the heading, which included the word “cracks”.
“I think the story itself I have received many calls praising me, not from PF but from people saying that’s exactly what needs to be done because we need a strong opposition…Because what normally happens (with regards the heading), some people who may be lazy, you know people reading culture is very bad, they just look at the headline and they form an opinion,” Milupi said. “The main body (of the initial story) is perfectly alright, someone sent me a message and that’s what exactly if I gave you the…just that we don’t want to discuss the thing that’s exactly what I have said but I have no influence on how the headline is written. We are used to that.”
He said Daily Revelation was very accurate in how they quoted him in the story.
“So I think I stand by what (I said), you know I don’t say things without thinking. Because we can’t pretend that all is well, and by the way when I talk about alliances, I am not just talking about one alliance, there are many attempts to form alliances, the are many many many many…people discuss, there are so many discussions taking place and most of them they falter on the question of leadership,” Milupi said. “You will agree on everything you know, that the country is going down, we need to do this, to do that but when it comes to leadership exactly what I said in my story is what prevails and as a result we do not really focus on delivering the right sort of message…just read the story that you wrote it was so good.”
Alliance member James Lukuku accused Daily Revelation of falsifying the story and writing propaganda against UPND leader Hakainde Hichilema.
But Kambwili said one could only say they were facing challenges if they had failed to agree.
“As at now we have not failed to agree, we are still consulting, counter consulting, proposing and counter proposing. So I wouldn’t say that we are facing challenges because when you are coming together as an alliance…you are coming from two different backgrounds you need to understand each other agree to disagree. There is no relationship which has no challenge,” Kambwili said. “For me I will not say we have challenges and we are failing to agree. We have no declared a deadlock. We are still discussing, we are yet to have another meeting, we are waiting for Honourable Milupi to come back from Western Province so that he can convene a meeting. So I don’t know from what angle he’s looking at it but I think we haven’t reached a point where we have disagreed completely and reached a deadlock where you can even think of inviting other people to come and mediate.”
Asked on how true the assertions were that Milupi has proposed to contest seats in Western Province, but the UPND argue that they have members of parliament and a footing already in the province, and should therefore be the ones to contest, Kambwili said: “That’s what I am saying, you know when you are still discussing you are debating in order to agree. So I don’t think it’s right for Honourable Milupi to go to the press at this time because there haven’t been what I may call serious disagreements. If there were serious disagreements we could have said ah twafilwana (we have failed to reach consensus).”
Kambwili said the last meeting involved the proposals agreed and that they should go and consult their parties, and provide feedback.
“You know what I told you last time that you know what has destroyed these alliances is this issue of quickly rushing to the press, quickly coming up with conclusions, you know lets give this alliance time to nature, we may agree to disagree and disagree to agree but at the end of it all we will agree on one thing and I am very confident that we will agree on one thing,” Kambwili said. “I am very confident that we will agree on one thing because we are committed that this thing should work and we are looking forward to it to work. But when you start going to the press to involve outsiders, people read and put comments you will be disrupted by those comments.”
Kambwili said some of the people one might think were advising, could actually be fomenting propaganda in order to break the unity.
“That’s why for me it’s not the right time to issue any statement and go to the press over the alliance because we are still discussing,” said Kambwili.
Efforts to talk to UPND leader Hakainde Hichilema failed as his mobile went unanswered.
-Daily Revelation