Rupiah is scared of me, says Sata

Rupiah is scared of me, says Sata
Written by Patson Chilemba
Monday, May 18, 2009 4:19:07 PM

PATRIOTIC Front (PF) president Michael Sata yesterday said Rupiah Banda and his friends in the MMD are damn scared of him and they will do anything to stop him from contesting the Republican presidency.

Reacting to works and supply minister Mike Mulongoti's statement that the nation should not U-turn on the precedent of having university graduates as Republican presidents, Sata said President Banda and his friends would want to use everything at their disposal, including the National Constitutional Conference (NCC), to stop him from becoming president.

He said President Banda and the MMD had failed to come to terms with his ever -growing popularity in the nation.

Sata said he was not worried at the manoeuvres by people like Mulongoti because patriotic citizens would have the final say at the referendum.

"Before Levy Mwanawasa died, they wanted to put in the Constitution that a President should be less than 65 years old. They were fighting for age. Now they are talking of degree. Mulongoti is talking of a President and civil servants having a degree but he is not talking about ministers having a degree," Sata said. "From Mwanawasa to Rupiah Banda they are trying to use everything at their disposal to stop me. They are very damn scared of me and they will be very disappointed and some will die with shock when the [PF] central committee adopts me as presidential candidate."

Sata said it would be tantamount to discrimination against millions of Zambian citizens to suggest that the Republican President must have a university degree.

"The good thing is that NCC does not make laws, it only recommends. We shall meet at the referendum. They shall justify at the referendum," he said.

Sata said Parliament was made up of the President, Speaker and members of parliament and that since Mulongoti had proposed that the Republican President must be a degree holder, parliamentarians and ministers should also be university graduates.

"The Constitution we are using is derived from Britain and also from the Commonwealth. The qualifications for the President are the same as those for members of parliament," said Sata.

On Saturday, Mulongoti said there should be an act of Parliament which stipulates the various qualifications needed for people aspiring for high office such as Republican President.

"We can as a principle include in the Constitution that a head of state or president of the Republic must carry a recognised qualification prescribed under the Act of Parliament," he said.

Asked if he would push for the Act since he was also a member of parliament, Mulongoti responded: "Yes, if you look in the region, everybody is moving to university graduates as a President."

Mulongoti said governance was no longer a child's play because the world was becoming complex and technical, saying the appreciation of global issues was beginning to pose a challenge to leadership.

Mulongoti said even parliamentarians needed to read in order to articulate issues.

"It is not discrimination so to speak. It is positive discrimination. That way, we will also encourage those aspiring to leadership to begin to dust their certificates, the qualifications they got in the 1960s," said Mulongoti.