By Charles Tembo
PF founder member Johnson Mpundu says the former ruling part is not ready to rebrand.
He notes that the Patriotic Front moved away from its pro-poor policy to mocking the suffering people.
Last week, embattled PF member Bowman Lusambo during a live interview on Muvi TV bragged that the price of the perfume his wife uses can be used to pay rentals for someone.
Lusambo, a former Lusaka Province minister, is currently awaiting the Constitution Court’s decision over election as Kabushi member of parliament which was nullified by the High Court.
But Mpundu said it is such arrogance from people like Lusambo that will make the PF fail to rebrand.
“We can’t be talking about rebranding yet busy mocking the people, to whom we caused sufferings. How is that possible? If we continue to allow people, young chaps like Lusambo to mock the people, then forget about rebranding this party,” he warned.
“The PF lost elections because it became insensitive to the plight of the people. If you stop listening to the people, that is arrogance.”
Mpundu said the tag that PF was a group of criminal elements can’t be removed with “characters like Lusambo around”.
“So how can the tag of PF being a corrupt and criminal gang of people be removed if we can have characters like Lusambo openly brag about the prices of perfume for his wife? The people are not interested…” he noted.
“PF leaders go on platforms to say, ‘we are sorry for the mistakes we made…’ Is what Lusambo bragging about part of the sorry song? We can’t continue to mock the people!”
Mpundu questioned the motive of former president Edgar Lungu in appointing characters who did not mean well for the people.
“In the time of Michael Sata, we could not have Lusambo as minister. But ba [Mr] Lungu was so weak and he allowed such characters to be his ministers. That was the downfall of PF,” said Mpundu.