By Daily Revelation Reporters
Chilufya Tayali says the PF is too guilty and their candidate too compromised and highly likely that he will be arrested, and can therefore not offer effective checks and balances on UPND’s broken promises.
And Socialist Party candidate in the cancelled Kabwata by-elections Tripher Ng’andu said the ground is very fertile for him to win the Kabwata seat, saying people could not risk their vote on the PF as it is a party associated with corruption and cadreism, while the UPND is taking people for a ride with increased fuel prices and high cost of living.
Speaking with Daily Revelation, Tayali, the EPP leader, said the cancellation of the elections will give him more time as candidate to engage with the people, saying he stood out as someone that would offer effective checks and balances on the ruling UPND “seemingly broken promises.”
“PF cannot offer effective checks and balances because they have a guilty conscience and Clement Tembo himself (PF candidate) is compromised. So he’s not a person who will stand up…it’s highly likely he will be arrested himself,” said Tayali, adding that people could not question him as he has been engaging with the community for a long time.
And Ng’andu said the people who included the clause in the constitution where if one candidate withdraws from the race, the election will have to be cancelled, were very selfish.
Asked if he has been sufficiently inducted into the socialist way of doing things, which the SP often undertakes on new members, seeing that he was adopted merely a few days after resigning from the PF, Ng’andu said someone who ran orphanages in the manner he did was already advancing socialist causes, something he said capitalists could not do.
But put to him that he was in PF for all that long when they were pursuing capitalist policies, Ng’andu said the PF of Michael Sata was different from the PF of his successor Edgar Lungu, despite the fact that he served as Kabwata constituency chairman during the “capitalist” tenure of Lungu.
He said the PF constitution of Sata was based on advancing socialist causes, but the PF of Lungu was characterised with images of cadres splashing money everywhere, saying if he were a chancer he would have joined the ruling UPND as opposed to going to the SP.
Ng’andu said as far as he was concerned “there is no completion in Kabwata”, saying people could not vote for the PF again “where cadres would start getting back into the market” and that with UPND, people have realised that “balitugong’a”.
“PF left fuel at K17, today it’s going for K21 per liter. So people can’t be taken for a ride. I am going to scoop this if I am given another chance,” said Ng’andu.
But UPND Lusaka district deputy information and publicity secretary, Costain Chilikwazi said retaining the Kabwata seat will be a walk over, saying the party was fielding a credible and popular candidate and the leadership had therefore no intention of changing its candidate Andrew Tayengwa.
“Tayengwa is the people’s choice. He is popular on the ground. He is the winning formula and we have no intentions of changing a popular candidate,” said Chilikwazi.
