By Staff Reporter
Former Health minister in the MMD government Angela Cifire says she has confronted her former national secretary in the former ruling MMD, Dr Katele Kalumba over his activities in Eastern Province.
And Cifire said opposition UPND leader Hakainde Hichilema has become likable with the Zambia people and “is going to win the August 12 election.”
Speaking with Daily Revelation, Cifire said she has also heard that former intelligence chief Xavier Chuungu and former aide to President Lungu, Kaizar Zulu, along with other PF officials and aides are also in Eastern Province, although she has not met them.
“Actually we have stayed at the same place (with Kalumba). And on two occasions we have had chats…he says he’s working on some programme where he is enticing the traditional rulers to have an approach of giving a level playing field to all the candidates considering that the chiefs are supposed to be non partisan and they are supposed to embrace all as their children. That is the response he gave me,” she said.
Asked if she took Dr Kalumba for his word, Cifire said it was not a question of believing, but was merely stating that she had approached Kalumba over what he was doing in the Province.
“I haven’t seen Xavier, I haven’t seen Kaizar but I have heard that they are around but I can confirm that Katele and I have been together and we were neighbors where we were staying,” Cifire said. “I may have found him there, I have been there this is my second week now. So at the time I met him he told me he was coming from Vubwi, so which means he’s been around for sometime. I think he made Chipata his central location, as he moves from one place to the other.”
Cifire said she asked Kalumba on the fact that he had been appointed as the PF’s campaign chairman for Luapula Province, but that the former MMD national secretary told her that he was in Chipata purely for traditional reasons.
She said she also asked Kalumba if the traditional arrangement was only important for Eastern Province and not Luapula or the other provinces
“That is what I asked him and I reminded him and some point I thought he was supposed to be coordinating Luapula in the PF campaigns. He tells me that he declined that one because he’s a traditional ruler as well, and apparently he’s either the secretary or chairman for this association of some royal something which he is either heading or he’s part of the secretariat and his role is to go throughout Zambia,” Cifire said, “and talk to the traditional rulers that they should be focused towards peace and they should be focused towards accommodating all the candidates because theirs is to accommodate all the children and not to take sides.”
Asked on assertions that former president Rupiah Banda had issues with her and Sherry Thole campaigning for the UPND, Cifire said she has not talked to president Banda, adding that she was once accused during the MMD times of having jumped ship to PF, such that she had to go and explain to the people in her former Luangeni constituency that she was not doing that.
She said what she found amazing was that all those who accused her were now in PF today.
“I lost elections together with president Banda, and he in turn who had been very annoyed with me at the time now supported the same PF that I was accused of. In 2015 after Michael Sata died I played along with everybody to say no ‘Eastern Province because you know we have a candidate that is coming from Eastern Province and so on’, and that was the same things as 2016,” Cifire said. “So I think this thing of people wanting everybody to choose what they think is right at the same time and it’s going to be wrong if it’s going to be done by somebody else is not right, because we should not only choose what benefits us.”
Cifire said “I think if we are talking about a moral standing we should be able to choose what is right at the time and for everybody.”
“If we are going to accuse others of playing a tribal card while we are being tribal them who is tribal at the end of the end of the day? Because the issue of talking about what is a stronghold, if Eastern Province is going to be a stronghold for me it should be biblical that a stronghold should relate with where you think you have your own people,” said Cifire. “So if it’s right for Eastern Province why is it wrong for Southern Province. So in this one I have not had a chat with president Banda. So I wouldn’t say whether he has said this or not.”
