Mutinta Mazoka Resignation from UPND is because of fear of political attacks on her husband Fred M’membe – Mark Simuuwe

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The United Party for National Development – UPND Consultant Mark Simuuwe says the resignation of Mutinta Mazoka from the Party comes in the wake of not wanting anybody to politically attack her husband, who’s the Socialist Party President Fred M’membe.

Mr Simuuwe disclosed that Mutinta Mazoka’s resignation is because she doesn’t want anyone to say anything against her husband.

“So, the question is assuming that today, Fred M’membe becomes the President then who’s going to be the first lady because assuming that Mutinta Mazoka remains in the UPND as a member of the National Management Committee member, which is the highest governing organ of the ruling party and so, a decision to resign had to be made by herself,” he said

He mentioned that many people wondered how she managed to remain in the ruling party when the husband is in the opposition, this is a very difficult area to explain because the common thing that has witnessed elsewhere and everywhere, is that a wife will follow the husband’s political journey as way of showing moral support, they will tend to speak your mind whether wrong or right as it is rare to find couples going parallel in terms of being political affiliated.

“For instance in the United States of America when Clinton was President, the wife supported him overwhelmingly and when time came for the wife to try to contest for candidature as American President, the husband also supported her overwhelmingly, what this demonstrates is that two people that spend nights in the same bedroom cannot easily disagree on political grounds because then they will mess up so many things as politics come with a lot of challenges especially when it comes to certain political attacks that cannot be bared,” he said

“It doesn’t sit well with Mutinta Mazoka when people respond to Fred M’membe’s malicious attacks, I was personally confronted by her when I responded to Fred M’membe, she cautioned as to why I was taking such a route to the point of attacking her husband but you can’t stay in politics like that, because when you decide to join politics there are all those attacks that come but you have to be ready and equal to the task to take them on. So, in my view this is something that has greatly contributed to her decision of resigning from the UPND,” he stated

Mr Simuuwe explained that if one looks at the personality of Fred M’membe who is usually keen on talking about issues to do with tribalism, as many of the youths especially those that are in the mid-20s don’t know Fred M’membe well especially when it comes to ethnic rivalry, and those that may not have known this is the man that has been at the center of tribalism in Zambia, because when tribalism started in politics the POST Newspaper played a very critical role in harnessing that particular tribalism and often times using the Editorial comments as they would call directly to attack viciously the late UPND President Anderson Mazoka not as an individual but the Tonga people themselves, as the POST Newspaper would go deep in attacking them and their persona.

“Fred M’membe attacked Mazoka upto the last nail on his coffin and afterwards, he even married the daughter Mutinta Mazoka, but he continued attacking the one who took over from Mazoka who happens to be Hakainde Hichilema, as many people found that the POST Newspaper carried so many headlines against either Hakainde as an individual, or the Tonga people from Southern Province, and issues of regionalism started with M’membe as he took it up to attack all the regions viciously,” he mentioned

Mr Simuuwe stated that freedom of association basically means that one is free to belong to an organization or a group of your choice, one is free to associate and make a decision but how one makes that decision is entirely up to them, it’s also entirely up to the reflection that one makes for instance, a number of factors which can be private or maybe one could not fit in an organization and in some cases it’s because of personal reason as people make decisions based on what they think.

Mr Simuuwe highlighted this during an interview on JOY FM.

In a letter dated 8th November, 2022, addressed to the UPND Secretary General Batuke Imenda, Mutinta Mazoka resigned with immediate effect from the Party, as she further thanked all the leaders and members of the UPND for giving her an opportunity to work with them.

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