Maravi

It’ll be easy to defeat Rupiah – Sata

It’ll be easy to defeat Rupiah – Sata
Written by Patson Chilemba
Wednesday, June 17, 2009 2:53:53 PM

PATRIOTIC Front (PF) president Michael Sata has observed that it will be much easier to stand against President Rupiah Banda because people are already aware of his underperformance.

And opposition FDD president Edith Nawakwi said it would be easy to defeat President Banda because of his government's laissez-faire attitude and lack of concern towards the many problems the nation is going through.

Commenting on the MMD national executive committee (NEC)'s endorsement of President Banda as presidential candidate for the 2011 general elections, Sata mockingly welcomed the President's candidature, saying he would be a better opponent to stand against in the MMD.

"Rupiah Banda is a much better opponent than anybody we don't know, because everybody knows Rupiah Banda's performance. So it will be much easier to campaign with Rupiah Banda than anybody else," said Sata. "In fact, it will be much easier to campaign against Rupiah Banda than Ludwig Sondashi."

He said he was never threatened by President Banda, saying the MMD had in fact done very well by endorsing his candidature in advance.

Sata said a lot had been talked about democracy in the PF, but the MMD was the most undemocratic party in that the NEC had endorsed President Banda as its sole candidate when the party would be going for a convention next year.

Sata blamed former president Frederick Chiluba for having butchered the MMD constitution when he picked on late president Levy Mwanawasa to be presidential candidate in 2001.

And Nawakwi said it was sad that MMD were preoccupied with President Banda's endorsement when they had nothing to show in terms of performance.

She cited President Banda's government's laisser-faire attitude on the nationwide strikes by civil servants. Nawakwi said she was one of those who attended the indaba called by the government, which had turned out to be just another tea party celebration because resolutions had not been implemented.

"Resolutions were made that agriculture needed to be dealt with in a different manner. There is no system from government on how this is going to be done. This is June, they have not said how they will redirect money which goes into private pockets on the FSP [Fertiliser Support Programme]," Nawakwi said. "We were told that with the writing off of debt, that belts will be loosened, it appears they will be tightened. Now there is a global crisis, what programmes have they put in place to address that rather than just saying the country is being affected by the global crunch?"

Nawakwi said there was poor performance in almost all the government ministries.

She cited government's move to procure the mobile hospitals.

"The Ministry of Education is a failure. In rural areas, two teachers are teaching 600 children. They have not told us what will happen to the grade nines and 12s who have not received their results," said Nawakwi.

"They have been working on the Chirundu road for the last six years. I think I have clearly said we know it will be much easier for us to defeat the MMD because of lack of performance."

MMD's NEC on Sunday endorsed President Banda's candidature for the 2011 elections.

Labels: RUPIAH BANDA, SATA

posted by MrK @ 1:53 PM