PF IS BIGGER THAN ANY INDIVIDUAL – GREYFORD MONDE
Lusaka, Thursday, December 8, 2022 (Smart Eagles)
AS THE Patriotic Front (PF) party prepares to go to the convention next year, one of the Presidential Aspirant is REPORTED to have allayed fears that the party will disintegrate after choosing a new Leader.
The critics are of the view that the PF is divided into 8 camps representing 8 different Presidential candidates.
BUT Greyford Monde who is in the running for the Party Presidency said the issue of coming back divided after the convention can NOT happen.
Speaking on Hot FM’s HOT SEAT Programme, Hon Monde said having eight (😎 candidates is not a sign of division but a representation of a strong and attractive party.
He said it is therefore worth putting on record that the party is stronger than any of the 8 candidates.
Hon Monde said the voice of the people at the grassroots level is to see the party united even after the convention hence he will support any candidate if he will not be elected.
“….. The issue of coming back divided can NOT happen. We now have 8 candidates because the party is attractive. Even in opposition, it was rare for a political party in opposition to attract such numbers. Others were just proposed or imposed. UPND in 2006 there was only Sakwiba Sikota and HH. After that it was HH all the way. Eight tells you that the party is stronger and that non of us are stronger than the party,” he said.
Meanwhile, Hon Monde said the PF rebranding process is on and that the Party is repentant to the issues the Zambian people detested.
He said the arrogance is no longer there and that some of the members who were not behaving accordingly are being moulded into better political players.
“We have been engaging our members to ask them why they were behaving like that. They are giving us responses. The arrogance people were talking about is now gone. We are interacting with a lot of people. We are taking seriously their submissions and we are hopping Zambians are going to give us another opportunity. We were trying to work on the economy and we neglected certain sectors,” he stated.
And Hon Monde has come to the defence of the Party nomination fees which were pegged at K200,000 for men and K100,000 for Women.
He said the fees were not meant to discourage the youth and women from participating but that the leader needed was one who is going to have the capacity raise a certain threshold of resources.
“It was part of the criteria, it must not be looked at as an individual contribution. The contribution could be sourced from different sources,” he said.
Hon Monde further stated that if there was a party that entrusted women with leadership positions is the Patriotic Front.
He said aside from being the first political party to appoint a woman as a vice President, the PF also appointed a female Chief Justice among other high ranking positions which were held by women.
