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Some MMD NEC members were paid K150,000 to endorse Rupiah – Chumbwe

Some MMD NEC members were paid K150,000 to endorse Rupiah – Chumbwe
Written by Katwishi Bwalya
Monday, October 27, 2008 10:19:54 PM

Vice-President Rupiah Banda paid some MMD national executive committee members from Lusaka Province K150,000 each for them to endorse him as presidential candidate, Lusaka Province MMD chairperson Geoffrey Chumbwe revealed yesterday.

Chumbwe said he was not that cheap to be bought for K150,000 just to endorse Vice-President Banda as MMD presidential candidate.

He was reacting to Lusaka Province MMD vice-chairperson Steven Bwalya who warned that the party was watching Chumbwe’s movements during the campaigns and would take appropriate action in accordance with the party's disciplinary procedures.

Bwalya's statement came after Chumbwe last week said Vice-President Banda had slim chances of winning this Thursday's presidential election because of disunity in the party. Chumbwe said he and other people who supported finance minister Ng'andu Magande during the election of the MMD presidential candidate had totally been sidelined by Vice-President Banda's campaign team.

Chumbwe yesterday wondered where Bwalya got the courage to threaten him with disciplinary action when he was just a junior party official. He said only NEC could discipline him.

“I have been provoked to say this. It is a fact that the provincial executive committee members when they endorsed Rupiah Banda were paid K150,000 each and does he really expect me to endorse a candidate just because I am paid?,” Chumbwe said. “I am not that cheap. It is unfortunate, I can't. This is a party and we were looking for a candidate to run a country and when we start giving our officials money, honestly can you sell a country just for that money?

“Out of 24 NEC members from Lusaka Province, 20 were paid and only four of us refused that money and you can imagine if all the provinces endorsed one candidate then another candidate won, there was going to be total confusion at that time in MMD.

So it was a system of forcing us to fall in what they had endorsed and Rupiah didn't want to talk about it.”

Chumbwe said the NEC delegates that were camped at Chrisma Hotel were caged so that no other candidate could have access to them and were seen frequenting Government House, Vice-President Banda official residence.

“People were just trekking from Chrisma Hotel to Government House and back so it was like people were just caged and there was no genuine candidate who could convince me that they had free access to the delegates, you will find that in the morning they were all at Chrisma Hotel and in the evening they were at Government House,” Chumbwe said.

He said they had all agreed to forget about the issue of money exchanging hands and the accessibility of delegates after Vice-President Banda was elected MMD presidential candidate because they were just building the party.

Chumbwe said he would not lie to anybody because he had a career to build and vowed not to get money from anybody just to support them.

“President Levy Mwanawasa would not have allowed such type of cheap politics where you pay your officials just to support your candidature. If RB did not pay the delegates, he was not going to be adopted,” Chumbwe said.

He vowed to continue campaigning for Vice-President Banda but at the same time continue saying what he thought was correct.

“For me I will continue saying what is correct and not what someone wants to hear. If am going this way and its dark, I will say this way is dark can we put light here? I will not pretend and tell you things that are not there,” he said. “But you see these people are just provoking us every day so that we say something. When I went to see Mike Mulongoti [MMD campaign manager], he was very good to me. I don't know why, he told me to stay low because it was difficult for Rupiah Banda to trust me because I had supported Magande.”

Chumbwe said some people were supporting Vice-President Banda not out of principle but looking at how they would benefit from the campaigns.

“Starting from the campaign itself, there are two things - principle and pragmatism. But there is a group looking at how they would benefit, if they were campaigning out of principle there was no reason we could be fighting like this but it is a question of pushing this one aside thinking if this one is there, he will be appointed and I will not. They think if we are too many, we will not have that opportunity,” Chumbwe said.

He advised Vice-President Banda to sit down and analyse issues and make corrections before it was too late.

“You will find that people who are good at campaigning will be pushed aside by those who are aggressive because of what they want to get out of it, which is very dangerous. Why are the opposition political parties campaigning for MMD,” Chumbwe asked. “What will they get out of it? The party [MMD] is asking. When they ask me, I am just saying I don't know because no one will tell me they are doing it out of principle. The problem I have is that we have a party and party structures and if you are a Zambian, you have seen the people who are campaigning for RB. Now, we don't know them, the opposition. I don't know where MMD is so I really don't know where the party structures are.”

Chumbwe also said he still stood by his earlier statement that if the current disunity in MMD continued, Vice-President Banda had slim chances of winning the elections.

“I am receiving phone calls saying 'Mr Chairman what you said in the paper is actually correct' and I have got some text messages from chairmen in my phone which I can show you and I got a phone call from as far as Luangwa saying even here we are in trouble,” said Chumbwe.

Labels: BRIBERY, MMD, NEC, RUPIAH BANDA

posted by MrK @ 10:14 PM