It’s going to be rough for us - Kasama MMD chairlady

It’s going to be rough for us - Kasama MMD chairlady
Written by Patson Chilemba in Kasama
Saturday, October 10, 2009 4:31:00 PM

In an interview, Sefuke said it would be rough for the MMD because they had a very weak campaign manager, Lusaka Province minister Charles Shawa.

Asked how she rated MMD's chances in Kasama Central with regard to what was obtaining on the ground, Sefuke responded: “We have a very lazy campaign manager. Shawa has never escorted the candidate in the campaigns. He always stays at the Guesthouse, sleeping. So what can you expect?”

Asked to categorically state her position on the matter, Sefuke said: “It's going to be rough [for MMD] but I can't predict. But it will be rough because Shawa is too lazy and Mugala is just fighting on his own.”

Sefuke said Shawa was so stingy with the party's resources and had acquired nicknames from the MMD cadres in the process.

“He just wants to benefit alone. At the command post, they are calling him King Herald or bashi Chola, because he has a bag of money that he is carrying all the time,” Sefuke said. “I am the district chairlady of Kasama. I am even more senior than Shawa, politically.”

Sefuke further said she could not take part in the MMD campaigns because she and the other party members were told to stay away.

“After Mugala filed in the nominations, I went to attend a party meeting of which Shawa was chairing as campaign manager. Then Fred Mukuka [MMD provincial secretary], stood up and told the members that they had decided that Simunyola should not be part of the campaigns, and they had spoken to him,” Sefuke narrated. “Then he went on to say, 'the second person we don't need in this campaign is this madam seated here, Brillian Sefuke. We don't want you here because you were an interested party and applied to contest, and now since you are the losing candidate, we feel you will be filtering information to the PF because of your in-law [PF candidate Geoffrey Bwalya Mwamba]. You are not the only one we are chasing; we don't want Bernard Mpundu in the campaigns and many others'.”

Sefuke said she was then asked to leave the meeting and she thanked them for being honest for telling her to stay away from the campaigns.

“They want to put me in this position so that after elections, they will come and tell me that 'how can you campaign for a member of another party and probably suspend me,” Sefuke said. “So these people are victimising me to the highest point, and I feel they are doing this because I am a woman.”

Sefuke said she and her late uncle Emmanuel Kasonde had spent so much on the MMD and newcomers like Shawa would not push her out of the party.

She said Shawa came from UPND and wanted to contest the Luangwa seat on the same party ticket in 2006.

“He was a headmaster, so he wants to bring that school mentality to the political scene,” said Sefuke.