By Patson Chilemba
Our working relationship with UPND is not smooth as our members have continued facing rejection, says the Science and Technology minister Felix Mutati led-MDC secretary general Lucky Mulusa.
And Mulusa said in his case “wherever I am I make sure that nobody brings stupidity anywhere close to me, regardless of who they are…I don’t tolerate nonsense.”
Mulusa also said Mutati will have to respond according to what his conscious will tell him, in the event party members demand that he steps down as minister to concentrate on mobilising his party, during the forth coming consultative meeting the MDC will be having.
Speaking with Daily Revelation, Mulusa, the MDC secretary general which is in an alliance with the UPND and has seen the appointment of Mutati and Thabo Kawana into government positions, said there was a subtle rejection of his party members by those in the UPND, saying the members have reported a sense of rejection on programmes meant to be undertaken by the alliance.
“You see, selfish human beings always feel that when others come close then they will take their benefit, or they will dilute their benefit. So a message clearly gets sent and you feel it. You have got feelings as a human being, you feel it that there is an air of rejection here,” Mulusa said. “…there are those rejections when you interact with your colleagues you actually feel it that your colleagues don’t appreciate you, they really don’t want you.”
Mulusa made the assertion when asked on how their relationship was with the ruling UPND.
“Well, like you correctly pointed out we have our president who is serving in Cabinet. We’ve got our structures that from time to time attempt to work with the UPND but obviously there are challenges. You know there are challenges of rejection, yah. Yah! So the working relationship with the UPND is not as smooth, not even during the elections it wasn’t smooth at all,” Mulusa said. “Even during the elections our members were still faced with rejection, yes and that has continued especially after the UPND went into government. But as the MDC leadership we look at the bigger picture. The question is what was the bigger picture? The picture bigger was to liberate the nation from the misrule of the PF. That was the bigger picture. So even if during campaigns we were faced with rejection we still soldiered on, because what we wanted to achieve was more important than being accepted in an alliance.
“So even the continued rejection of alliance membership we still celebrate our achievement of having participated in the removal of the PF, because one wonders what Zambia would have been today with the PF in power. So for us we didn’t go in with expectation of being given positions, we went in to advance one objective and that one objective was the removal of the PF. That has been achieved. Now going forward we will get back to our structures and have a consultative process of the way forward. Remember that of all the alliance partners after the UPND, MDC has structures all over the country, right up to ward level. So we don’t have a single person making unilateral decisions. It’s a consultative process because we are an established political party that has structures everywhere.”
Asked if he too sensed rejection in his interactions with the UPND, Mulusa responded: “No! Me, I am a completely different human being. Wherever I am I make sure that nobody brings stupidity anywhere close to me, regardless of who they are. So for me I would not feel it. May be when I walk away if someone starts exercising some sense of rejection, not in my presence because I would tell anybody off. Yah! Me I don’t tolerate nonsense.”
Asked on some members of the party who have told Daily Revelation that they have urged Mutati to step down as minister having helped UPND into government, and what they felt as selfishness on his part that he also benefited from the members (then as one of the MMD factions) previous relationship with the PF when he was appointed as minister by former president Edgar Lungu, Mulusa told the journalist to direct that question to Mutati as he would be the best person to answer.
But put to him that he was the party’s SG, Mulusa said: “Yes I am the SG but he is serving in government, so that’s why I am saying he will be the best person to answer that riddle. Listen there is a riddle there and that riddle you have pointed out there is a player, a key player, and that’s our president. So he will be the best person to answer that question.”
Asked if the MDC would not participate in elections and if they would continue backing the ruling UPND now, during the 2026 elections and afterward, Mulusa said they would soon be meeting to hold a consultative meeting on the way forward and will inform the nation.
“Well the outcome of the elections last year we are part of the creation of that outcome, and going into the alliance partnership was an outcome of a consultative process throughout the party. So we cannot depart from that without getting back to the structures and asking them for a common position on the way forward. So that’s why I said we will soon be having consultative meetings,” Mulusa said. “We should have had it, a couple of weeks ago but then we were faced with the death of president Banda, so we suspended all activities to do with mobilization. But now that everything has passed we will plan for a consultative process that will give us direction and we will let everybody know where we stand.”
Asked what would happen in the event members asked for Mutati to step down from his ministerial position in order to concentrate on mobilising the party, Mulusa said: “Well if the membership say that’s what must happen, then president Mutati will obviously respond according to what his conscious will guide him. Yes. So for us we are not a one man party. Yes, we have got structures everywhere….so for us it’s not about a single person making a personal decision. It’s about a consultative process.”
