PF HAS ECL AS PARTY PRESIDENT – MUKANDILA
…says Sampa must have been longing to know how it feels like winning an election at a convention
Lusaka, Wednesday, November 1, 2023 (Smart Eagles)
While mocking Miles Sampa over his “illegal” presidency, Patriotic Front (PF) member Celestine Mambula Mukandila says Dr Edgar Chagwa Lungu is the only person the party has as President.
And Mr Mukandila, who is a well-spoken lawyer based in Lusaka maintained that no procedure was followed at the “convention” that saw Mr Sampa ascend to the presidency.
He explained when he featured on Lusaka Music Radio earlier today that Mr Sampa only wanted to know what it feels like to win an election at a party convention.
“We had nine candidates, how many candidates were there? Only one. So for me, Miles Sampa was having a mock exercise to try and see how a convention ought to be held, not that that gathering can be called a convention. Remember we needed delegates from all the 10 provinces in the numbers of 600 or 500,” he said.
“But, you can clearly see from the videos that those were less than 210 people. And as a matter of fact, Miles Sampa wanted to know how a convention can be held or how it would feel to win an election at a convention. It was a mock exercise, the final exam ought to have taken place in an event that president Lungu decided not to come back. We should have still gone ahead to have a convention where all the nine candidates including honourable Miles Sampa was going to be present and details were going to be assessed by the national council…”
He disclosed that Sampa’s meeting at Mulungushi International Conference Centre was not sanctioned by the party.
“That particular meeting that Miles Sampa had was neither sanctioned by the party nor the central committee. Remember, notice has to be given by the Secretary General of the Patriotic Front. And of course, this drama we are seeing today should be considered as mere drama which is going to be outlived by the process that we have in court. The Patriotic Front has one president and that is president Edgar Lungu,” he said.
Mr Mukandila said president Lungu’s Leave from active politics did not remove him from being president of the party.
“According to the PF constitution, if the person elected as the president of the party does not become Republican president, he/she shall continue to be the party president until a president is elected at another convention,” he said.
“Despite the fact that president Lungu decided to leave active politics, this constitution has provided that he continued to be the president of the party, henceforth, the reason we indicated that we could not be swayed by any authority into changing office bearers at the Registrar of Societies.”