EASTERN Province PF chairman Andrew Lubusha says Munir Zulu was bringing confusion among PF structures in Lumezi’s Kamimba ward.
Munir Zulu has since ‘ditched’ the ruling party citing harassment and hatred from Lubusha.
In an audio message he posted in a PF WhatsApp group, Zulu accused Lubusha of peddling lies against him.
Zulu further said he would challenge the PF for the Lumezi seat on an independent ticket.
But Lubusha said Zulu had risked the victory of PF candidate in the just ended Kamimba ward by-election in Lumezi Constituency by distributing T-Shirts with the message “Vote for Munir Zulu”.
He explained that Zulu refused to heed his advice.
“The offence that I committed is that I had gone to drum up support for our councillor in Lumezi. I was there for a week and on the sixth day just three days before the voting day, we had a rally at some place in Lumezi within Kamimba Ward. And before we go to a rally Munir got there. He just got into Kamimba the previous night and distributed T-shirts bearing his portrait saying ‘Vote for Munir Zulu’. And when the rally began, voters were confused. They provincial chairlady spoke to the voters and as usual in the traditional way she was asking the voters. Now that we have delivered the good message from Edgar Chagwa Lungu to you, so who are you going to vote for as your councillor on Monday 4th of January and the entire crowd responded that it was going to vote for Munir Zulu,” Lubusha said. “And before then, I had even sent the test message where I was advising Munir that out of the nine wards in Lumezi, he is free to go in any other wards or in that ward he can attend but he should not distribute his T-shirts because of the message saying ‘Vote for Munir Zulu’. You know our colleagues in the rural setup, it is not all of them who can understand. Others got confused. We were risking the victory of our candidate and I guided my colleague Munir Zulu that voters may get confused. It would be very important if we would stop distributing the T-shirts and start that after the by-election because we were only remaining with three days.”
And Lubusha explained that Zulu wanted him to announce the seven bags of mealie-meal he had bought for the seven campaign camps set during the ward by-election.
He said in his political life he had never heard of any announcement on internal donations at the public rally because it had nothing to do with the voters.
Lubusha said according to his understanding everything in the party was done in the name of the party president and not individuals.
“And the other thing is he had bought seven bags of mealie meal which I never saw but he told me that he bought seven bags to feed the seven camps in Kamimba Ward. He distributed to the campaign centres according to him. So at a rally, he walked to me and told me, ‘chair, please announce at this function that I have bought food for the campaigns, that as long as you don’t mention what has been bought but just mention that Munir is the one feeding the camps’,” he narrated. “So I advised Munir that things coming from well-wishers we cannot announce. Just like me I have been helping foot soldiers who have been helping us to go and campaign. I am telling them that that is from the President. What comes and what we do in the party, we do it in the name of the President. But it did not sit well with him.”
Lubusha said people were not interested to know where the contribution was coming from but the message on how we would develop their lives.
“The voters want to listen on how you will take care of their needs in their various communities. How you will develop their lives. So afterward he sent me the message on why I failed to announce his contribution, that I was undermining him. I tried to reason with him but he wouldn’t get it. In our conversation he sounded to have understood but I was just surprised with the way he is doing things – as if there were differences,” said Lubusha. “Believe you, me, I never differed with him in anyway. We were talking that same night. I was telling him that gentlemen, let’s increase youth representation in parliament. Up until now I am in a shock. I have listened to his voice note and see what he is writing. I have failed to coordinate them. He is trying to create an impression as if we differed in any way. There was nothing like differing in any way. And for me, I have no time to fight. My duty as a provincial chairperson is to unite people, not to scatter them.”
But Munir said he had been pushed too far and that he would prove a point that he was not a small boy by standing against the PF in Lumezi Constituency.
He said the Kamimba ward by-election had shown inefficiency levels in PF.
“I’m saying goodbye to those I consider comrades within the PF. Comrades, I reached a stage where I have got to make a political decision. A decision that will injure some people, a decision that will make some people wake up from slumber, a decision that maybe will expose the happenings in our party,” said Zulu.