By Patson Chilemba
UPND will only be in power for five years in the event I am elected PF president, says Chishimba Kambwili.
And Kambwili has pleaded with his fellow party member, Lupososhi member of parliament Emmanuel Mpankata, to forgive him if there is anything wrong he has done against him, as he doesn’t understand where Mpankata’s hatred comes from.
Speaking with Daily Revelation, Kambwili responded to Mumbi Phiri’s statement that his name was coming out prominently to replace Edgar Lungu, saying he had no problem in taking over as he would not let the party down.
He said in 2014 when president Michael Sata died, the people called for president Lungu to take over despite his own ambitions and those of people like Given Lubinda, Geoffrey Bwalya Mwamba and Christine Kaseba among others.
“At the end of the day the people’s voice prevailed. If members want me to take over the mantle, why not? I can only assure members that I will not let them down and I will accept the privilege to be president of a giant organisation,” Kambwili said.
But put across to him that Mpankata had recently said that people who could not hold their ambitions left the party but were now back to take over the presidency, and were using money to influence youths because they felt the party was now broke, Kambwili said Mpankata has always had a problem with him.
He said the issue of him going out and then coming back again to the party was “neither here nor there”, as president Lungu himself said PF was for everybody, when responding to murmurings on the appointments of new members Charles Kakoma and Kabinga Pande into the central committee.
He said it was shocking that Mpankata could begin to sow seeds of disunity.
“He has always harbored hatred for me from a long time, because Sata used to say ‘if I had five people like Chishimba Kambwili we would have formed government already’ during our time in the opposition. But he said ‘why does Sata always talk about Kambwili when I was the first MP in the party?’” Kambwili said. “I will not be surprised that he must be among the people who were calling for my expulsion from the party. Even if I become president in PF I will treat him as a brother…please if I have wronged you in anyway find it in your heart to forgive me.”
Kambwili said even when people called for him to chair the postmortem committee, Mpankata opposed saying they should not be appointing people who once left the party and caused its defeat.
“If I become president of PF, with all the support from everybody, including Mpankata, UPND will not jump the five year mark. That you can tick. They will only rule for five years, and after five years PF will bounce back,” Kambwili said. “At the moment I am giving them all the latitude to settle. I don’t want the way people were saying about UPND that they were bitter.”
He said the ruling UPND has a huge challenge to fulfill their expectations to the people.
Put across to him that Democratic Party (DP) leader Harry Kalaba said those in PF must first repent for the corruption, anti-democratic tendencies, using pangas in political violence and other vices before talking of rebranding, Kambwili said he was fired from government in 2016 while Kalaba remained part of government until around 2018, and therefore he must be part of the people apologising to Zambians, including Science and Technology minister Felix Mutati.
Taking a dig at President Hakainde Hichilema who has left the country within the first month of being elected, Kambwili said Sata took his first trip outside the country after six months of being elected even when he was invited to address the Commonwealth in Australia earlier.
“He said he wanted to settle his government first…(but) I can’t fault Bally on that because each person has his own way of handling things,” he said.
Asked on what basis people should trust him that he will remain still in PF when the going gets tough, when he has flip flopped in the past, uttering a lot against PF and that he was committed to the NDC and the opposition alliance before u-turning and rejoining the same party, and suddenly launching attacks on the opposition again, Kambwili said politics has seasons as not everything that glitters was gold.
He said even Vice-President Mutale Nalumango used to say a lot against President Hichilema during her time in the MMD.
“My DNA is PF, so you can see how I attach great importance to the PF,” said Kambwili.
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