Maravi

Prof Chirwa will be bruised - minister

Prof Chirwa will be bruised - minister
By Lambwe Kachali
Saturday November 24, 2007 [03:00]

PROFESSOR Clive Chirwa will be politically bruised if he dares to contest the MMD presidency without understanding how the party operates, Lusaka Province minister Lameck Mangani has said. Commenting on Prof Chirwa’s intentions to contest the MMD presidency and later the 2011 Republican presidential elections, Mangani advised Prof Chirwa to understand the Zambian politics before declaring his presidential intentions.

Mangani - who is also Eastern Province MMD chairman - said the party did not know Prof Chirwa both at national and provincial levels.

“We have a structure to follow in MMD. You don’t just come from nowhere and say I want to become the party president and later lead the nation. I sit on the MMD national executive committee (NEC) and there has been no time the committee discussed Prof Chirwa and his joining of MMD,” Mangani said.

He said it was important that Prof Chirwa acquaints himself with the Zambian political atmosphere.

“I am afraid, this man (Prof Chirwa) will be politically bruised. This is a political game he is involving himself in. People will reap him off all the money he has worked for as a Professor and later he will even fail to go back to Britain,” Mangani said.

He said from Prof Chirwa’s statement, it was clear that he was adamant to become the next president of Zambia.

“Yes, he may be well educated. But politics are different from academic qualifications. In politics you don’t need to brag. Politics will terminate his education and become a nobody within a short period of time. It is very normal and this is what is happening in the Zambian politics and Africa at large,” Mangani said.

Asked whether MMD has welcomed Prof Chirwa’s intentions to lead the party, Mangani said the party could not do so because he was not known at any level.

“How do we welcome somebody that we don’t know? Personally, I don’t know him. I just met him once at Parliament Motel, that’s all. If the party top leadership knew him, I should be aware as well.

That is why I am warning him to be aware because he risks being reaped off all the money he has been saving to help his family,” Mangani said. “If he has been associating with junior party members, he better changes and let himself be known by the top leadership.”

Asked if people in Eastern Province were aware about Prof Chirwa presidential aspirations, Mangani said no chief in the province knew him.

“You know, even chiefs have been asking me about who this person who claims to be an Easterner is. They don’t know him,” Mangani said.
He said debate over the MMD presidency had not yet been opened and it would be inappropriate at this stage to say whether or not Prof Chirwa was fit to be in the party.

“So to me and on behalf of the party, this is a non-issue,” said Mangani.

Prof Chirwa - who is Britain’s Bolton University Professor of crashworthiness – on Thursday announced that he would be contesting the MMD presidency because Zambia needed to have a president like him.

He said he would prepare himself adequately to ensure that he scooped the presidency both at party and national levels.

Labels: CLIVE CHIRWA, MMD, PRESIDENCY

posted by MrK @ 5:58 AM