By Patson Chilemba
If Edgar Lungu can be president then I can surely serve as UPND vice-president, says opposition UPND deputy secretary general Patrick Mucheleka.
Speaking with Daily Revelation, Mucheleka was asked to confirm information that he is eyeing the UPND vice-presidency at the convention to he held in January 2021. Responding, Mucheleka said he was a party operative who was ready to be deployed anywhere, including the vice-presidency. He said if President Lungu, whose ability he seriously questioned, could serve as Republican President then he was eminently qualified to serve in high position.
“I am a party operative and I can be deployed anywhere,” Mucheleka said. Asked if that included the party vice-presidency, Mucheleka responded: “What makes you think I don’t have what it takes. If Edgar Lungu can be President why can’t I serve in that position (vice-president)? Look at my background and compare with Mr Lungu, very solid. Then look at Lungu? These are people who have lowered the bar. Ba Chilemba mulefwaya nkane (Mr. Chilemba do you want me to refuse?”
Mucheleka said people like President Lungu and Home Affairs minister Stephen Kampyongo had lowered the leadership bar, saying he had no problem with anyone coming from the streets to aspire for positions, but he had serious issues with Kampyongo serving in his current position.
He said in the case of Kampyongo, the man whom he said was coming into the Ministry of Home Affairs with a lot of inferiority baggage having served as a money changer on the streets, and therefore the country was witnessing the killing of innocent citizens on the hands of the police, just so that Kampyongo could prove his authority.
Asked on how the alliance talks were going, in view of the fact that reports kept flying around of the PF trying to entice one of the alliance partners, National Democratic Congress (NDC) leader Chishimba Kambwili, to rejoin their ranks, Mucheleka said the PF would be the best people to address that matter as they are the same ones who chased Kambwili and were now taking him before the courts of law. He said as far as he was concerned, the alliance was intact, and talks were going on well.
“I would be surprised if Kambwili would entertain going back to PF,” said Mucheleka.
And Mucheleka charged that K1.2 million, whose sources was questionable, had been pumped into Northern Province to bribe chiefs and headmen. He questioned the source of money through the presidential empowerment, particularly that it did not have a vote in the national budget.
Mucheleka said the country should also interrogate some of the contractors who were donating to the ruling party, as some were those who had been given contracts to undertake national projects, while some had been given projects which they did not deliver upon, despite being paid some money. -Daily Revelation