IF MUDOLO QUALIFIES, HE’S WELCOME TO CONTEST PF PRESIDENCY – LUBINDA
ACTING PF President Given Lubinda says South African-based businessman Willah Mudolo is free to contest the PF presidency as long as he meets the party’s qualifications.
Lubinda has also announced that the PF would hold its convention in November, even if former president Edgar Lungu has not been buried by that time.
Speaking during an appearance on Diamond TV recently, Lubinda said whoever qualifies to contest the party presidency should simply follow the party’s constitution.
“I don’t know Mudolo, but I know that there are many people who are positioning themselves to take over as president of the Patriotic Front. Whoever qualifies is free, let them follow the constitution, let them follow the instructions that will come from the central committee. If they qualify, they are welcome. Nobody can stop anyone. We are a democratic party that wants to enhance the democracy of the country. We can’t say we are going to enhance Zambia’s democracy if we ourselves, in our internal processes, are undemocratic. That would be hypocrisy. So, if Mudolo qualifies, he’s welcome,” he said.
And Lubinda said the PF would hold its convention in November, even if Lungu was not buried.
“We don’t know when the burial will take place. And should we as a party be held to ransom by that? We lost time already from June to September; we were in mourning, and we did not take a lot of political activism because of the mourning period. But to whose benefit? It has been to our disadvantage but it has been to somebody’s advantage.
Our disadvantage has been the advantage of our friends because for them they have been mobilising, they’ve launched their campaign for 2026. And yet for us we have been kept in mourning. This is why in September when I was in Petauke, I mentioned to our officials that we shall continue to mourn our departed president Edgar Chagwa Lungu, but we will not have our feet fixed to the ground, we won’t have our hands tied; we ought to start working, we ought to do what president Lungu wanted us to do. He died in pursuit of a second liberation of Zambia,” he said.
“You remember what he said on October 28, 2023, when he announced that he was coming back to politics: he said he couldn’t sit back to watch the shrinkage of the democratic space in Zambia, and he called upon all of us to rally together so that in 2026 we redeem Zambia from the tyranny of the UPND. And for us to sit back because his body hasn’t been interred would be a let down for him.
We will be letting down his legacy, his vision. I’m sure that wherever his spirit is, it’s saying, ‘fight on,’ so that those brothers and sisters who are incarcerated for political reasons must be given their liberty and that those people in Zambia who are not allowed to express themselves must be given the freedom of expression. That is what was his desire. I’m sure that his spirit is lingering, waiting for us to take that action. And because of that, even before we bury our departed brother, we have to have the convention”.
Meanwhile, Lubinda argued that the people who blocked his interview at Radio Phoenix, where he was scheduled to appear, were not PF members.
“There’s no reason why I would be scared of any PF members. I have to state that I wasn’t at the scene at the time this was happening. I was on my way to the studio when my advance team, which was going to make sure that the studio was ready and so on, because they also had to go and set up cameras for us to stream online on our different platforms, alerted me to the presence of the thugs who were at Radio Phoenix.
My advance team that went there is composed of senior members of the PF who would be expected to know the majority of our party members. The people they met there, they couldn’t recognize a single person as being from the PF. Their suspicion is that these could have been hired thugs from either another political party or known thugs from anywhere. They were not PF members,” he said.
He said the incident should be condemned as Zambia was a democratic state.
“This is something that all of us must condemn in the strongest terms possible. Zambia has been a democratic state for a long time, and people must enjoy their freedom of movement and freedom of association. I don’t move around with bodyguards, I have never had a bodyguard. The last time I had an ADC was when I was a government minister. Before then and after that, I have never had bodyguards because I have not seen any reason why I should walk around the streets of Lusaka with bodyguards,” said Lubinda.
“If this trend continues, it will force people to start creating their own forces of defence, and you can imagine what the country will turn into if every politician moves around with a team of militia, a team of people to protect them. We will create a very dangerous society, and we must abhor this. I want to appeal to all of us politicians: let us exercise our political rights to express our views, to exchange ideas, let’s use politics to be a field in which there’s a battle of ideas and not a battle of physical violence, intimidation or coercion. That’s not the politics that Zambia deserves”.
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Given forgets easily. PF has many camps it’s very possible that those thugs are Pf because UPND has no time for such nonsense. PF has its internal enemies. PF wasted four years fighting between themselves in stead of rebranding. If these fellows replaced Edgar immediately he retired the new leader would be somewhere now. They stuck with Edgar because of his stolen money instead of doing clean politics and be somewhere ! Now they are panicking because those years are gone and are simply counting months. Kaya ma guys, me I think you have missed the train. Better wait for 2031 train. You have to blame yourselves for poor strategies. And mind you Given, nobody is incarcerated for political resoans. You might not have stollen yourself but your friends took heed of Edgar ‘ s advise of MWIBALA and now being punished for stealing and corruption and not political victimization. Be sincere Given and avoid misleading people.