Killing MMD is synonymous to killing democracy – Nawa
IT is immoral for Nevers Mumba to cling to the MMD presidency, says party member Sylvia Nawa.
In a statement, Nawa dispelled assertions that she had left the MMD for another party and that she was being funded by former Muchinga MMD member of parliament Howard Kunda.
Nawa, a former MMD chairperson for mobilisation and Mongu Central parliamentary candidate, said the allegations peddled by party vice-president Rueben Samboh were fictitious.
“Yesterday, the outgoing MMD vice-president Sambo issued out a poorly written statement where he, among other things, alleged that I had left the MMD to a named party and that I’m being funded by Hon Howard Kunda. Firstly, it is alarming that a senior clergy at the level of a bishop can manufacture lies and lie through his teeth a day before going to the altar to minister the word of God,’’ she said. ‘’I am MMD and a true blue and will always be one. How can Samboh today allege that I’m not MMD when I was among the 8 candidates who stood on the party ticket in the 156 constituencies?”
Nawa said apart from being the party’s previous chairperson for mobilisation, she was also the campaign manager for the MMD candidate during the Lukashya parliamentary by-election in 2019.
Nawa challenged Rev Samboh to disclose which ‘named party’ she had joined.
‘’Secondly, in his usual hallucinations he alleged that honourable Howard Kunda is my sponsor and had funded me just because I reminded Dr Mumba that his 10-year office tenure has come to an end. I have neither met nor spoken to Honourable Kunda nor do I have his number. I’m giving Samboh 48 hours to prove how honourable Kunda sponsored me, failure to which the nation and MMD members at large will label him,” Nawa said.
She claimed that Rev Samboh would never have kind words on her because she challenged him for the position of vice-president (political) at the party convention last year.
“Everyone in MMD knows this, as I beat him straight and square by 60 votes. Our reminder to the outgoing party president as his tenure comes to an end: Dr Mumba, you were elected on 25th May 2012. In 2015 you ran on MMD ticket as party presidential candidate during the presidential by-election,’’ Nawa said. ‘’In 2016 you had an alliance pact with the UPND as MMD president. According to you there was war going on but you never relinquished the presidency. It was business as usual. In August 2021 general elections you again filed in as MMD presidential candidate.”
Nawa recalled that she was the one who mobilised the required 100 numbers of supporters fro Mumba in Western Province, as required by the Electoral Commission of Zambia.
“So, the question we ask is: ‘Dr Mumba, at which point were you not a party president in your 10-year tenure?’ In 2012 when you became president of the party you inherited 55 members of parliament, over 40 mayors and chairpersons and over 759 councillors,’’ she said. ‘’Yet, in the last election only about 19 people, including myself, stood on the MMD ticket. These include 8 members of parliament, 1 mayoral candidate and 10 councillors, yourself as presidential candidate and Samboh as your running mate, making it a total of 21 people out of the over 2,000 elective positions.”
Nawa described as absurd the failure by the former ruling party to field very few candidates in the 2021 elections.
She said party members had resolved to call for an all-inclusive convention to save the MMD “from dying”.
‘’This is failure par excellence. A morally upright politician with integrity would have resigned after getting a petty 4,000 votes out of 3 million votes cast. Lastly but not the least, about a week ago Dr Mumba had a consultative meeting with some of the Lusaka-based National Executive Committee members where his vice-president Samboh told the gathering that MMD was like a ‘dead baby in your hands’. So, our concern is that, why are they fighting for a dead baby,” asked Nawa. “The right thing to do is, when you have reached a point of failure like where your administration is, step aside and let someone who has faith enough to resuscitate the baby back to life step in. Our resolve of calling for the party to have an all-inclusive convention which has the full backing of the constitution is to save the Movement for Multiparty Democracy party from dying. Killing MMD is synonymous to killing democracy.”
The Mast