‘UPND’s victory in Mufumbwe spells doom for MMD’

‘UPND’s victory in Mufumbwe spells doom for MMD’
By David Chongo in Solwezi
Tue 04 May 2010, 03:40 CAT

FORMER MMD North Western Province youth chairperson Newton Malwa has said UPND’s victory in the Mufumbwe parliamentary by-election has clearly vindicated him and subsequently spelt doom for the ruling party in upcoming elections in the region.

And Malwa has hinted that he could join the UPND in the area if the party thought he could be useful.

He said the result of the Mufumbwe by-election was known a long time before but the MMD went ahead to field an unpopular candidate, alleging that MMD Mulondwe Muzungu’s tally was only boosted by President Rupiah Banda’s presence.

“The results in Mufumbwe were known a long time ago but MMD was trying to campaign. It was known that UPND was going to win; the results were fully expected. This is an indication that President Rupiah Banda is cheated.

If this continues he will be cheated again. If President Rupiah Banda does not change his advisors, this is the beginning of the end of MMD in this province. If President Rupiah Banda was not there the MMD couldn’t have gotten 4,000 votes; they could have flopped catastrophically,” he said.

He said if MMD and President Banda continued moving in the same direction, they could as well forget about 2011, observing that the party had yet to recover from the Solwezi Central debacle.

“If President Banda continues moving in the same direction, the problem will be higher in 2011. MMD should sit down to reconcile and accept the situation. If MMD does not sit down and look at their failures in North Western Province then there won’t be any MMD victory 2011,” he said.

“When MMD lost Solwezi Central there was no postmortem to find out why the party lost the election and to know how they were going to deal with the next election. They didn’t get to find out what really made the party to lose that election. But they went into the Mufumbwe by-election with the same attitude.

This is the reason why they have lost! The Bembas say amano yafuma mu chipuba or mukantu akanono (wisdom comes from a fool or a small thing) but they ignored it (his previous assessment that the MMD would lose the election if they fielded Muzungu who he said was unpopular in Mufumbwe).”

Malwa challenged those who were calling for his eventual resignation from the party to raise their heads now that the Mufumbwe result showed that he was ‘bluffing’.

“For those who were challenging me to resign from the party that I was bluffing and cheating, they should now come out in the open and deny what I was saying. Let’s see who is bluffing and cheating now. Let’s see who is laughing now. They say ‘he who laughs last laughs the loudest’. And I am laughing the loudest; I have been vindicated,” he said.

“When I said MMD was going to lose the Mufumbwe seat, the PEC (Provincial Executive Committee) even sat to suspend me but they were surprised that instead of attending the meeting I took my resignation letter.”

Malwa alleged that President Banda was surrounded by “liars” who were ill-advising him on issues, stating that if the party was not careful it could lose the influence it had in other provinces ‘related’ to North Western Province.

“There are so many liars especially those who move with flags… that they are close to President Rupiah Banda. MMD should also know that the influence of North-Western Province goes to Western and Central Province. These provinces interact and they have shown that they interact; they are related somehow,” he said.

Malwa reiterated that UPND’s recent electoral victories in the province showed that the masses were definitely behind the opposition party.

“Whether you like it or not the wind in this province is on UPND’s side. Those unpopular MPs in North-Western will be pancakes for UPND in 2011,” he said.

He also condemned the violence that characterized the Mufumbwe election advising youths in political parties not to be used by candidates to fulfill their political ambitions for public office.

And when asked to comment on lingering rumours in Solwezi that he had intentions of joining the opposition UPND, Malwa said he was a free man who was ready to work with people interested in national development.