By Staff Reporter
Mafinga member of Parliament (PF) Robert Chabinga has boasted that he is the chief rebel in PF rebel, warning that former president Edgar Lungu will just bring embarrassment upon himself should he attempt to contest another election in this country.
Speaking with Daily Revelation, Chabinga said he fully agrees with his fellow PF member of parliament Davison Mung’andu (Chama-South) that those who can’t survive on their own are going to president Lungu to tell him that he should come back to lead PF.
“They want personal gains. Their interest is on personal gains. They are not looking at the bigger picture. And my advice I think some few days ago I did mention that with due respect president Edgar Chagwa Lungu he should not succumb to that,” Chabinga said, saying he must rest and retire to be a statesman.
He said the people that are going to Lungu to tell him to stand just want his money, and that in this country the history was that when one has served as head of state they can’t come back, saying Dr Kenneth Kaunda and Rupiah Banda failed in their own attempts to come back.
Chabinga said president Lungu should be someone people go to for advice, and that the only thing he must be receiving people for is to get advice and not for him “to say he must bounce back.”
“The President must remember that the same people cheated him that the ground is fertile and we ended up losing the election,” Chabinga said. “I can tell you some of us where busy telling the people that can we talk, (but) they called us all sorts of names especially myself, I will be very honest, I had no access at that particular time to State House.”
Chabinga said the few people that were saying that the PF was losing power were not listened to, and that the same people who cheated Lungu were now going to him to tell him that he will come back and win.
He said if president Lungu was fair to himself, with the increased CDF especially in rural areas, “my brother I can tell you, my opinion, this is my opinion as Robert Chabinga, dislodging HH it will be very difficult in 2026. Very difficult at the trajectory we are moving with the CDF. This I can tell you.”
“President Lungu must just have to be careful. Some of them that are actually going there are crooks. And those are the same people who have been scandalising other people, making other people’s names to be bad. The same team,” Chabinga said, adding that president Lungu will never be Republican president again.
He said Zambians are very tricky, saying the PF was intact but the question is “how many voters are we?”
He said the people that voted mostly were the youths, wondering how many of them were PF.
“If we were too much intact, why did we lose with 1.8 million votes against 2.8 million? It means that even some of our members did not vote for us. That’s the rationale behind that,” Chabinga said, and that people must just leave Lungu alone. “And if he has those ambitions I would just say that my former president in whom I have got a lot of great respect not to agree. To come back as president he will just finish himself and bring embarrassment. That I can tell you. It will just be an embarrassment to bring back. That’s what I feel.”
He urged the PF to pick people who are sober, and can unite the party and can’t use propaganda, saying trying to use the same propaganda which they used when in power will not work.
Chabinga said when PF had everything at its disposal, president Lungu was commander in chief yet lost the elections badly to “somebody who did not campaign. Who was blocked left, right and center.”
He wondered how Lungu could expect to win when President Hichilema was now on the steering wheel.
“It’s not possible,” he said.
Chabinga said he was expressing the feelings of the general public, urging the party must do a bit of investigation and research, but he could not speak on the other PF members of parliament.
He said he was the only one that has come out strongly as “most of them (MPs) operate under cover. So you might not even know whether you are with them or not.”
“Because most of them are scared to say no, we need to follow what the party is doing. And that is why me I have been labeled to be a rebel. Yes and I have agreed that I am a chief rebel. Because I speak my mind. But I shall remain a PF member. No one can chase me from the party. No!” Chabinga said.
Amid assertions that others were arguing for president Lungu to continue as he would secure financial connections for the party, Chabinga said PF was still Lungu’s party and he could secure the money even if he was not the one leading the organisation.
He said president Lungu could connect the other PF leader to financial connections, arguing that the first time Lungu came in in 2015, it was the will of the people that pushed him even without finances.
“So what can stop another person to go the same well? Well wishers were just flocking,” said Chabinga, but on the person he thought should take over the PF, he said that was his secret. “Ask me the question when we are one week to the convention. I will tell you.”
