UPND APPRECIATES KAKOMA’S CONTRIBUTION, WISHES HIM WELL
By Danny Mofya
UPND Choma Central member of parliament Cornelius Mweetwa has rescinded his decision not to contest the Choma Central Constituency seat.
And Mweetwa, who is also UPND spokesperson says Charles Kakoma has a constitution right to choose a party to belong to.
At a media briefing in Lusaka this morning, Mweetwa said Kakoma’s move was not new as similar actives happened in 2011 when PF was in opposition and a number of its MPs resigned to join the MMD which was the ruling party then.
Kakoma resigned to join PF and promised to campaign for Edgar Lungu.
He said both UPND leader Hakainde Hichilema and President Lungu were his friends and he had left one to help another.
“It is your constitution right to belong to a particular party of your choice…the bottom line is honourable Charles Kakoma has a right to join PF the same way a lot of people who voted for PF in 2016 have since moved on. They are now with UPND because it is forming the next government,” Mweetwa said.
“You will also recall that in 2011, 22 serving MPs of PF left PF because it was in the opposition. They went to join MMD. Did that save MMD? MMD lost to PF because government is not formed by MPs or individual political leaders. Government was formed by the PF. This 2021 battle will be the people vs PF. UPND is just a platform. There would be other more people who might join PF, don’t worry, we have seen this before. It doesn’t change the decisions of the people.”
Mweetwa discouraged talk by some people who were claiming Kakoma was not active as UPND spokesperson probably because he had been compromised.
He said Kakoma had won a third term in 2011 but the PF petitioned and nullified his election, therefore making him vulnerable.
He condemned PF tactics of making people vulnerable and returning to say “here is money, come”.
And Mweetwa rescinded his decision not to re-contest the Chomo Central seat, saying he had heard Choma people’s demands and ultimatum.
“I have today, Tuesday, here at the party secretariat, due to public pressure, [I] have rescinded my decision. And my campaign machinery will roll into Choma very soon. But again people have told me that don’t worry about the campaigning. Campaign here is over. You will continue campaigning with HH, here you have won. So I have agreed with the people. People have also said this is not the time to change the MPs anyhow. They have said where you must change the MP they must be a compelling reason,” said Mweetwa.
Meanwhile, Garry Nkombo said UPND would adopt more physically changed people to represent the party at all levels.
He further said the adoption would be on merit for those who were loyal and committed to the cause of the party.
Nkombo noted that UPND had suffered a lot in the last five years at PF manipulation of “buying” their candidates and causing by-elections.
“We will be biased to the people who are disabled, we will be biased to…female gender and youth. There will be a due diligence report. The applicants’ loyalty to the party is of paramount importance. People will not be adopted simply because they are disabled. They have to have a track record of being committed to the causes of the political party,” he said.
“So there are benchmarks. This is not a wholesale statement that whoever is disabled; we will have to look at those embassies and primary among them is one’s commitment to the cause that we are trying to fight for. We also think that stability will be determined by this due diligence report.”
Nkombo said Zambia deserves better.
He said the party learnt it the hard way when the ruling party were taking advantage of poverty among its counsellors and mayors ro buy them off.
“You know, we suffered a lot of consequences of not being careful on how we choose candidates, especially in Western Province. PF were dangling carrots to everyone and taking advantage of people who were subject to poverty. We are being extremely careful that we don’t get people who are going to be fly by night; that we adopt them today, they win tomorrow, the next day they are given eccess amounts of money, they subject us to more by-elections,” said Nkombo.
“We think that this country deserves a lot more attention than having unnecessary by-elections and experience is the best teacher. We experienced unnecessary by-elections, that is the reason why it is a tough call to choose leaders and so we commit, from our end, that we are going to give positive discrimination to people who are living with disability but who have proved loyalty and committed to the political party.”