Mulongoti, Mabenga contradict each other over W/Province MMD problems

Mulongoti, Mabenga contradict each other over W/Province MMD problems
By Mwala Kalaluka
Wed 25 Nov. 2009, 04:01 CAT

MMD chairman for elections Mike Mulongoti yesterday said the problems the ruling party has in Western Province are emanating from internal conflicts among members there. But MMD national chairman Michael Mabenga has said there are no wrangles within the ruling party in the province.

And Mongu Diocese Caritas director Nathaniel Mubukwanu said the chairman for the Western Province dissolved MMD executive committee Simasiku Namakando should explain the nature of his recent ‘reconciliation’ with President Rupiah Banda to the people of Western Province.

Mulongoti said in an interview that it had become evident from the reconciliatory meeting between Namakando and President Banda at State House that these intra-party differences in the province needed to be harmonised immediately.

Mulongoti, who is also acting MMD spokesperson, and home affairs minister Lameck Mangani attended the reconciliatory meeting between President Banda and Namakando last Saturday.

Mulongoti said the meeting got to the root cause of the problem.

“We listened to each other very carefully and it became evident that there were internal issues. The issues had nothing to with the President or anybody else. It was a purely Western Province problem,” Mulongoti said. “There was no quarrel between Namakando and the President. So you can see the truth is emerging now. So we need to harmonise.”

Mulongoti said during the meeting Namakando pointed out to President Banda the source of the problems the MMD have in the Western Province.

“Namakando came out and said Sir, the problem is this and this,” Mulongoti said. “We need to harmonise the people of Western Province. Reconciliations are a good thing for any society.”

Mulongoti said as part of the harmonisation process, the party would be civil enough by talking to those people that were acting in the positions previously held by Namakando and the others, as a way of briefing them on the discussions between the clique and President Banda.

Mulongoti said it would be important to involve the party structures in the province in resolving the intra-party problems.

But Mabenga, who is also Mulobezi member of parliament in Western Province, said he was in touch with almost everybody within the MMD in the province and he had not received any report of intra-party wrangles.

He was responding to a question on the revelations from the meeting between President Banda and the Namakando faction that the ruling party’s problems in the province were a consequence of intra-party wrangles.
“I am ignorant of those wrangles in the Western Province, maybe I have to be told because I am at the national level. There are no wrangles in the Western Province… I hail from Sesheke myself and I have not seen any wrangles coming from there. I went to Mongu, I went to Senanga, I was not given that report myself,” Mabenga disputed. “That is a blue lie, if anyone mentioned that. If it is true then it would have been brought to the attention of the members of parliament.”

And Mubukwanu said it was sad that Namakando arrived in Mongu from Lusaka in a sick state but that as soon as he gets well there was need for him to explain his reconciliation with President Banda to the people who supported his stance on issues affecting the MMD.

“The onus is on Namakando to get back to the people, those who sympathised with him,” Mubukwanu said during a press briefing at his office yesterday. “It is regrettable that he is unwell. As soon as he gets better, let him explain the direction that his reconciliation is going to take.”

Mubukwanu said there was nothing to be happy or sad about the reconciliation because it was expected.

“It is just a circus. He Namakando put up a good fight within a circus,” Mubukwanu said. “That fight was not going anywhere because we were not privy to the details of the reconciliation apart from what we read in The Post.”

Mubukwanu asked whether Namakando would be reinstated as the provincial MMD chairman and as the board chairman for the Western Water and Sewarage Company, positions he was moved from following his stance on MMD-related matters.

Meanwhile, Namakando’s family member said he was feeling much better and able to talk.