[By Chambwa Moonga in Kalomo]
PF is history for me; I don’t look back, I have moved on, says Harry Kalaba.
Kalaba, the Democratic Party (DP) president, says he is not confused to be using money going all over Zambia with an entourage if he stood no chance of winning the Republican presidency this year.
In an interview in Choma to allay public anticipation that he would be the next to apologise to the PF leadership and rejoin the ruling party, like several others have sheepishly done, Kalaba counted himself out from doing so.
“I’m Harry Kalaba! Even as minister, I just resigned on my won. I chose to leave PF. Honestly, why should I go back to PF when they didn’t ask me to leave?” Kalaba said. “I was elected to be president of the DP at a properly organised convention. I have been promoted to be president! So, why do you want me to go and be vice-mobilisation chairman in another political party? Honestly speaking, the PF for me is a no-go area. No!”
He added that those in the PF disappointed not only Zambians but: “even us who had faith that things might get a little better.”
He underscored his resignation from the PF, on own volition.
“I freely left the PF! I was foreign affairs minister and I resigned on my own and they didn’t want me to resign. So, I don’t see any reason why people are expecting me to apologise. And apologise for what?” he explained. “I have always said that I have respect for the President [and] I have respect for my colleagues who are still in that party. But I have differed with them sharply on matters of governance.”
Kalaba asserted that he could not apologise to anybody because: “today the PF is the biggest mistake Zambia has ever had from the time of her independence.”
“The PF, after president Sata died, is the biggest scandal that we have had. Therefore, I don’t see myself apologising to anybody,” he stressed.
“And the Bible says he who puts his hand on the plough and looks back is not fit for the kingdom. I’m the president of a party now; I can’t go to another party and be anything less than what I am today. The membership in the DP has deposited confidence in me to lead them and I’ll not betray that confidence.”
Kalaba stressed that he would not rejoin the PF.
“PF is history for me; I don’t look back. I have moved on. Whether things are good in the DP or things don’t become good in the DP, the thing is that PF is not an option anymore,” Kalaba emphasised. “I’m DP and I would rather just stop politics than go back to what I have said no to. In any case, why should people expect me to go back to PF? Why can’t [those in the] PF come to the DP? But I know it’s difficult for most of them to come to our party because of the strictness with which we manage our affairs in the Democratic Party.”
And on a special interview programme on Voice of Kalomo radio on Saturday evening, Kalaba said 2021 had arrived and declared the DP ready for the August 12 polls.
“We are very ready for the elections as DP. That is why you’ve seen that the national secretary of our party (Precious Ntambu) is in North-Western Province, our vice-president (Judith Kabemba) is on the Copperbelt, I’m coming from Western Province and now I’m in Southern Province [and] the national chairman (Neddy Nzowa) has now gone to the Copperbelt,” he said. “So, we are spread all over to ensure that our structures are intact [and] to ensure that we have parliamentary candidates in all constituencies.”
Kalaba further noted that the DP would field parliamentary candidates in all the 156 constituencies and that it was not doing so for the sake of it.
“[But] we are fielding to win. And I can tell you [that] Zambia is in for a shock never seen because as DP we are going to win the elections, even in areas where they have been telling you [that] ‘no! This is the stronghold of this and that’,” Kalaba said. “[But] there is nothing like stronghold. It is One Zambia One Nation. Atubelekele antoomwe (let’s work together).”
He continued: “there are some people who will tell you that ‘don’t go to Southern Province; you cannot win there because they will vote for a particular political party.’”
“But I have told them that that’s not true…Our party in Kalomo is very strong and we had DP women on Women’s Day who participated in the event,” he noted.
Meanwhile, Kalaba believes that the DP has got a chance of winning in Kalomo and that its members have no reason to even be walking with their heads low.
“The people of Zambia want change. And when you (interviewer Austin Siabeenzu) look at me, I’m not confused to be using money going all over the country with my delegation. If I knew [that] there was no chance of us winning, I would have just stayed home,” Kalaba said. “But because I know that the Zambian people are looking for a shoulder to cry on, we have provided that shoulder as DP, for them to cry on because we understand the challenges before us. The reception has been excellent and I can’t think of a district where we went and people said ‘we don’t want this political party.’”
Since resigning from the PF government in early January 2018, Kalaba has toured almost all of Zambia’s 116 districts, for several times, to woo support for himself and the DP.
Kalaba is disappointed that the PF is handling the entire electoral process as if this year’s elections are exclusively about them.
“They are going in the election believing that it should be them to win, and yet the people of Kalomo are saying PF is not going to win,” noted Kalaba.