By Staff Reporter
I will file-in nominations to stand as PF presidential candidate because I am eligible to stand, Chishimba Kambwili has said defiantly.
And Kambwili said Zambians have in these past four months seen for themselves the kind of leadership the UPND is, and should therefore start making corrective measures now to 2026.
Speaking with Daily Revelation, Kambwili was asked on his PF presidential ambitions where it may even be possible to block him entirely from standing, as is being advanced by some of his party members that he has not yet cloaked five years since he rejoined the former ruling party from NDC.
“Well, I don’t want to comment on those issues. I have said and I want to say it again, I am going to file my nominations when the time comes, and we will cross the bridge when we get there. Because as far as I am concerned I am eligible to stand as PF president,” Kambwili said. “Whatever has been said (that) I am not eligible is neither here no there. First they started with, on that one I think I will answer. First they started by saying that he has got no position in the party.”
He said but in 2015 Dr Christine Kaseba filed her nomination, together with Bob Sichinga and several others when they did not hold any position in the party, saying when that fell off his opponents moved to another topic.
“Let’s come to article 72, that somebody should have been in the party for five years. If you heard what national chairperson (Davies) Chama said and what Paul Moonga said, they said whoever is saying Kambwili doesn’t qualify is not correct. Because Paul Moonga, Chama he was there when we formulated that provision of the constitution,” Kambwili said. “That provision was meant to deter a completely new comer who may come with money, bribe his way at the convention without understanding what PF stands for. What are the ideologies of PF? What we intend to achieve and where we are coming from.
“Mr Sata said we have to protect the office of the president because in this country politics have now turned commercial…people use money to get the presidency.”
He said the provision was meant to deter a completely new person and not the people who started the party like himself.
“How do you say Kambwili doesn’t understand the party when I am one of the five people that started the party? I was minister for five years, I have been in the party probably longer than almost all those who are vying to be president today. I am longer than them I was involved in grassroots,” Kambwili said.
Asked if he agreed with the decision to have Given Lubinda as acting party president, although Lubinda himself has clarified that Lungu is still the substantive president as he has only taken a back seat, Kambwili said: “I don’t want to talk about those issues, let the other people talk about them not me. I am also an interested party so I don’t want to be misquoted (by other people)…I would rather keep quiet about it. Like I have said you know the situation in which I am at the moment, I don’t want to be misquoted over those issues. I would rather not make any comment on it.”
Asked if he will participate in the campaigns in Kabwata, and if the friction that has emerged over the acting presidency in the party will not affect them, Kambwili said he will campaign as a member of the party.
“Whether the decision is uniting the party, whoever loves PF must just get involved with the Kabwata by-election,” he said.
And Kambwili said people have now seen for themselves “the people they out in office”, saying they were showing the same arrogance which was exhibited by the previous administration. He said current leaders were now going to street vendors and telling them that “I have not come here to negotiate, I have just come here to chase you.”
“You are telling people you were going to reduce fuel, you were going to reduce electricity, you increase. When they talk about it, they complain you tell them ‘I am not here to be re-elected, I am here to control the economy and I will make very tough decisions.’ That’s not the way you lead people,” Kambwili said, saying the same word President Hakainde Hichilema was saying to Zambians to tighten their belts now for a better future was used by late president Frederick Chiluba, whom he said kept blaming his predecessor Dr Kenneth Kaunda of everything that was going wrong in the country.
He dismissed the argument that the years of Chiluba’s tightening were shown through the abundance of his successor Levy Mwanawasa, as Chiluba himself always argued, but Kambwili said the economic growth under president Mwanawasa did not translate to improved living standards for Zambians, and that that was the more reason why the MMD government of his successor Rupiah Banda was voted out of office.
He claimed that President Hichilema had disturbed the PF programme of industrialising the country by first developing infrastructure around the country for the first 15-20 years.
“We created fuel levy fund where we said when the price of fuel goes up we use that to subsidies to make the price of fuel stable. We were subsidising to cushion the poor people, but here comes a capitalist government and they say no ways. The people will sort themselves out, the poor people. Whether they suffer or not we don’t care,” said Kambwili. “There is no one you can be increasing everything. You give them 12 percent salary then you increase fuel, you increase electricity. The 12 percent you have given them is already diluted and they even have extra expenses.”
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