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MMD can’t get Chifubu under Rupiah - Mpombo

MMD can’t get Chifubu under Rupiah - Mpombo
By George Chellah and Patson Chilemba
Tue 15 June 2010, 04:00 CAT

GEORGE Mpombo yesterday said the MMD will certainly lose the Chifubu parliamentary by-election even if President Rupiah Banda adopts himself as candidate. And Ng’andu Magande yesterday urged credible MMD ministers and leaders to seek other options because the current MMD government is not credible.

Reacting to MMD national chairman Michael Mabenga and spokesperson Dora Siliya’s call on him to leave the MMD if they were unhappy, Mpombo – who is former defence minister - said it was people like Mabenga and Siliya that should leave the MMD.

“Dora has lost her bearings and I wish to ask the public to treat her outbursts with the contempt they deserve. The people that should leave the party, it’s her and Rupiah who have vandalised the party constitution.

The MMD is in a serious political recession because of the conduct of Dora and Rupiah,” Mpombo said. “It seems there is a gang of people in MMD that is determined to destroy the party. That is why the party is becoming so unpopular and we are losing elections all the time. Dora is very raw in politics. She has a long way to go so she should just shut up.

”As for Mabenga, you tell him that it’s actually Mulobezi Constituency that needs an ideal candidate and not Kafulafuta or Chilanga. People in Mulobezi need a better member of parliament. So what can Mabenga tell us?”

Mpombo advised Siliya and Mabenga to understand the dynamics of politics on the Copperbelt.
“In Chifubu, they just have to put their acts together in a more decent manner. But even then I don’t think we are in a position to get that seat from PF. Under Rupiah Banda, MMD can’t get Chifubu. PF will definitely feast on them in Chifubu. The PF/UPND Pact will walk away with Chifubu,” Mpombo said.

“Even if Mr Rupiah Banda adopted himself and stood in Chifubu as parliamentary candidate, the MMD will certainly lose. They will not go anywhere. The political rating of Rupiah Banda in Chifubu is extremely poor. It’s actually next to zero.”

Mpombo described President Banda as a big liability and milestone, which is hanging around the neck of the MMD.

“They should listen to constructive advice from people like myself and Mr Magande. If they continue listening to moribund and ramshackle political wheelbarrows like Joseph Chilambwe Copperbelt MMD chairperson, they will always be weeping at every election.

There is nothing for MMD in Chifubu. Even if they bring in the so-called Copperbelt MMD Task Force they are wasting their time,” Mpombo said.
“Rupiah should count himself and the MMD out of Chifubu. My advice to him is that he is destroying the party through selective justice, where people with crimes are walking free in the streets. People will make these an issue in the Chifubu campaigns.”

And Magande, a former finance minister, said a member of parliament could even contest elections as an independent.

“And it’s not only Chilanga Constituency. Perhaps in Chilanga they are now swapping MMD members for UNIP. The UNIP people will not vote for me. But then there are other 149 constituencies where I can stand,” Magande said. “They are going round and they are hearing the name of Magande and they are jittery. When I advise them to say ‘Zambians are saying they want change next year’, they say I am removing them from their posts.”

Magande said it was the Zambian people who were saying that they wanted a change of government next year because the current MMD government was not credible.

“That is what the people are saying…the people of Chavuma said that. I have been in the compounds of Lusaka, people are saying that. So when we want to advise people they say ‘you must leave’. I am saying the people are saying they want a change of government next year,” Magande said.

“Whoever stands there, if we go to the convention and MMD wins, he will need to put credible ministers and not people like Mabenga, who, as chairman of MMD, can only rise to deputy minister. And we now know the position of deputy minister is for people who are immature because we know one of the ministers has just been reduced from Cabinet to that position because he is immature.”

Magande said equally, Mabenga could not rise because he was immature.

“The President can’t raise him up, instead he goes to bring a member of parliament from UNIP,” Magande said. “
If you have people like MMD national secretary Katele Kalumba who is making an appeal and decided ‘I can’t continue to run ‘, that is already change also.”

Magande said people like Mabenga and education minister Dora Siliya were not desirable in government.

He wondered how Siliya would walk with her head high especially with the anomalies that characterised the sale of Zamtel.

Magande said Zambia was not short of credible leaders both in the MMD and the opposition.
“There are credible leaders, and the Zambians are saying ‘can credible Zambians form a government which we are going to have confidence in’. All those who are in MMD who are credible let them also start planning that they will be part of a credible government,” Magande said. “Even those who are in power now, in Cabinet, those who feel they are more credible that some other people let them come out and say ‘we want to change even within MMD’.”

On MMD Copperbelt Province chairman Joseph Chilambwe that he would personally stop Magande from attending the next MMD NEC meeting, Magande said he could not comment on what a provincial cadre said because he held such a senior position in MMD.

He asked Mabenga to emulate Kalumba’s example by stepping aside from active politics since he was found wanting to have abused K30 million Constituency Development Fund (CDF) by the courts of law.

Magande said now the people of Mulobezi thought Mabenga was going to so something with their money whenever they heard about CDF. He said Mabenga was just breaking the party by his actions against other party members.

“Why keep on planning to say ‘no this person will take action?’ When William Banda came here on Saturday, he went to a school where I have even helped to get some desks and to have the school painted. And yet he said ‘your MP has done nothing’. The people just said, ‘we just looked down because we thought he doesn’t know’,” said Magande.

Over the weekend, Mabenga said the MMD would not adopt Mpombo and Magande to contest on the party ticket in next year’s general elections. He said the duo would soon be dealt with. And Siliya also challenged the duo to resign from the ruling party and avoid unjustified attacks against the government.

Labels: 2011 ELECTIONS, GEORGE MPOMBO, MAGANDE, MMD

posted by MrK @ 2:59 PM