By Isaac Zulu
Southern Province minister Cornelius Mweetwa has wondered how Chishimba Kambwili could have influenced the voters from the Northern region to vote for President Hakainde Hichilema, when he did not even used to attend press briefings of the Opposition Political Alliance.
Commenting on Patriot Front running mate in the August 12 general elections, Professor Nkandu Luo who is on record of having said that former defence minister Geoffrey Bwalya Mwamba and former Roan member of parliament Chishimba Kambwili are the ones that influenced the acceptability of the UPND in the Northern parts of the country and they taught President Hakainde Hichilema how to speak in Bemba,
“And if GBM and Chishimba Kambwili influenced the UPND acceptability in the Northern region, well and good. That should not be a source of argument. But you will agree with me that Chishimba Kambwili never went anywhere in this country to campaign for President Hakainde Hichilema. He never did,” said Mweetwa. “Even the little time he spent in the Alliance, more than 90 per cent of press briefings that were held for Alliance Political party leaders he was always absent and sending his vice. So how can someone who was acting in absentia claim victory? We know that success has many fathers and that failure is an orphan. We appreciate all those facts. We went into Roan and backed NDC and that is when they managed to have the only member of parliament under the leadership of Chishimba Kambwili. It was because we backed them. But that is history.”
Mweetwa said the new government will not engage in discourse bordering on tribal politics, as that is retrogressive but will focus on policy implementation.
“We are not going to recede back to begin talking about politics of tribe in any way. That time has past. This time we should be talking about policy. We want people to talk about policy and not who did what or not for us to form goverment. Currently that is immaterial for us. We don’t want to start indulging in meaningless discourse such as that one. It is utterly meaningless,” Mweetwa told Daily Revelation Media. “So we don’t want to engage in that discourse of who influenced the votes from which region. No!”
He Zambians voted against the PF because of the escalating cost of living, collapsed economy and unsustainable rising mountain of debt.
“The people of this country voted us into goverment with clarity and uniformity. Number one, the people of Zambia voted for peace and unity and divisions that the Patriot Front were promoting. People were voting for an end to violence and cadreism. And today, sanity and order has been restored. People were voting against plunder of national resources,” said Mweetwa. “People were voting against the escalating cost of living and the run away rate of the Dollar the Kwacha, a collapsed economy and an unsustainable rising mountain of debt. These are the things that people were looking at when voting and not pereferal issues.”
He urged the media to challenge members of opposition political parties to talk about policies being promulgated by the UPND government.
“And also I want to encourage journalists. When people talk about tribal politics, also ask that are you saying that the policies that the new dawn government is promulgating and promoting were influenced by Chishimba Kambwili and GBM? Let’s talk about policies for once so that we can move our country forward. Politicians will always make noise and argue. But at the end of day, Zambians don’t eat arguments of politicians. Zambians want to see fruits of policies, alternatives and implementation,” said Mweetwa.
