PF IN POWER STRUGGLE
…there’s hostility, mistrust towards each other – Chirwa
By Christopher Miti
PATRIOTIC Front member and Lusaka lawyer Joseph Chirwa says the former ruling party should sober up and stop the trends that led to its downfall in the last election.
We must change, for example, in the way we handle conflicts within the party. We are still hostile towards each other. There is still mistrust within the party. There is power struggle within the party. As we are speaking, we haven’t rebranded. We are still the same party,” he told The Mast.
Announcing his decision to contest the position of national chairperson for legal affairs at the PF convention, Chirwa said every member should be allowed to contest positions they want from the presidency going down.
“I think that I can contribute to the revival of the PF. Are you aware that I tried to contest the same position prior to the general elections but unfortunately there were no elections? People were imposed on the general membership and this contributed to the bad performance of the PF,” he said in an interview.
“The PF as a party should sober up and stop the trends that contributed to its downfall. This is the time that, as the constitution provides, every member should be allowed to contest for the positions that they want. From the president, they should allow Brian Mundubile, Chishimba Kambwili, Emmanuel Mwamba and every person to stand as long as they are members of PF.”
Chirwa said majority of the people that were imposed on the general membership were not wanted.
He said this was not a right time when a party should be run like a cartel where leaders were imposed on the people.
“The moment we impose leaders on the people the party will not survive. The party will not be revived. The party will die by 2026. We are an opposition party, the time to dictate…even the former president should not have a hand in anyone,” Chirwa said.
“Him (Edgar Lungu) is a father figure. He is a patron of the PF. So let him facilitate a smooth transition of power so that we have a new membership in PF that has been voted and wanted by the party.”
Chirwa said the central committee of the PF was imposed on the general membership of the party.
On rebranding, he said it was difficult to rebrand with the same people.
“You can only rebrand with new people; meaning that you have to adopt new ideas. The pomposity that we had as a party where even our songs, our conduct as if we took people for granted that whether they wanted or not we will be in power… That pomposity, that pride, that ego should be dropped,” he said.
“To rebrand means that you have to change. You cannot rebrand something that hasn’t changed. We have to change our philosophy. We have to change our message. The most important thing is that we have to change our leadership. We cannot rebrand with the same leaders that are responsible for the status quo that we are in. We have to change our systems and our processes, that’s the only way.”
Chirwa said the rebranding process for the PF should have started immediately the party lost power.
He advised the party to critically look at issues that led to its loss in the last election.
“We must change, for example, in the way we handle conflicts within the party. We are still hostile towards each other. There is still mistrust within the party. There is power struggle within the party. As we are speaking, we haven’t rebranded. We are still the same party. We haven’t sold the new message to the people,” said Chirwa.
“We must be in a position to offer an alternative message. We cannot use the same tactics, for example, that the UPND were using when they were in opposition and us, we want to adopt those, no! We must be truthful to ourselves. We shouldn’t choose, for example, there is a postmortem report. Me, I am a member of PF, I was intimate with the campaigns but I have not even read it. The postmortem report must be published to everyone for us to know where we went wrong and where we need to focus on. The report must not be a secret document.”