Maravi

PF and UPND fail to agree over Chilanga

PF and UPND fail to agree over Chilanga
By Patson Chilemba and George Chellah
Wed 29 Sep. 2010, 04:02 CAT

THE Patriotic Front and UPND will compete against each other in the forthcoming Chilanga parliamentary by-election.

And PF Western Province chairman Kenneth Namutulo yesterday described UPND deputy national chairperson Likando Mufalali’s statement that PF leader Michael Sata had not been accepted in the province as a classical case of fear.

The decision by both parties to compete in Chilanga is against the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) they signed last year not to do so during elections.

Both PF deputy secretary general Emmanuel Musonda and UPND spokesperson Charles Kakoma announced in separate interviews yesterday that their respective parties would contest the Chilanga by-election.

Musonda said PF would contest the Chilanga seat and had since advertised for candidates to apply and that five people had so far applied to stand on the PF ticket.

“Our advert was running yesterday on radio and this morning at 08:00 hours as I am speaking, the constituency officials are conducting interviews, and at 14:00 hours the district will conduct interviews in Kafue,” Musonda said.

“Tomorrow at 08:00 hours, the province will conduct interviews and then the central committee will sit on Saturday to decide who we are going to field. So far we have received five applications.”

Musonda said Priscilla Kamanga, who was the losing candidate to former finance minister Ng’andu Magande in 2006, had also applied to be adopted.

“We have Mr Katyamba. We have Amon Kaonga and we have Clara B. Siluonge. So those have applied to contest on PF. Madalisto Kamanga withdrew the application saying he is not ready now but will try in 2011,” he said.

Musonda said the central committee, which was the supreme organ of the party would sit on Saturday to decide on the candidates for Mpulungu and Chilanga.

Asked if the PF-UPND pact had thrown away their agreement not to contest elections against each other, Musonda responded: “We agreed that Lusaka is a stronghold for PF. You know that Lusaka is a stronghold for PF and Chilanga is in Lusaka. And if you look at the 2008 presidential elections, we performed better than UPND.”

On the argument from the UPND that the joint working group of the PF and UPND agreed that the latter should contest Chilanga while the PF should contest Mpulungu, Musonda said the joint working group could not make decisions for the PF.

“It is the central committee which decides. Those people made a decision without consulting the central committee. So that is why I am saying it is the central committee which will decide on Saturday, not that committee. That committee is not the Supreme organ for decision making, no,” Musonda said.

“We are an independent party and we make decisions as PF. And the only organ that can make that decision is the central committee.”

But Kakoma said the UPND should contest the elections because the joint working group decided so.

“I think that position still stands because our structural arrangement within the pact working group is the one that runs the day to day affairs of the pact and also decides on the allocation of the seats and which parties to field,” he said.

Kakoma said if there was any dissatisfaction with the decision of the working group, the only other body of the pact that could reverse that decision was the joint national council, which he said was the superior organ of the pact.

On PF’s argument that they should contest Chilanga because they were stronger in the area, Kakoma said the criteria for fielding candidates was referred to the committee on elections to determine which party should field where.

He said there were various factors the pact had been using to decide on candidates.

“One of them is the relative strength of a party in a particular ward or parliamentary constituency. The other one is the relative quality of a candidate in a particular ward or constituency. We realise that because we are in a pact, we might have relative strength in a ward for example but our candidate is bad, they can get from the other party to field,” Kakoma said.

“The other criteria was just the spirit of give and take. Where you think that we are almost at par, we give and take. And there are so many other criteria.”

Kakoma said the decision that was made by the working group for UPND to contest Chilanga still stood, unless if it was overturned by the joint national council.

Asked when the UPND would sit to decide on the candidate, Kakoma said UPND would start scrutinising the candidates this week.

He said the pact should stand by its decisions, whether bad or good. Kakoma said the decision was that the working group would be deciding on the allocation of seats, adding that the only body the decision could be appealed to was the joint national council.

“Not the central committee of PF. That is an internal party arrangement. Not the national management committee of the UPND, that is an internal party arrangement,” said Kakoma.

And PF Western Province chairman Kenneth Namutulo dismissed assertions by Mufalali that Sata had not been accepted in the province. He said it was clear that the UPND in the province was scared with the work PF was doing in the region.

“Our job as PF here is to continue popularising the party because Mr Sata is the preferred candidate to lead the pact. Actually, we are going to do better than what we did last time. In fact, our performance in the province has been improving at every election,” Namutulo said.

He said the results PF obtained in Mongu Central in the last presidential by-election would resonate to the rest of the districts in the province.

“I stand by what I said during the official opening of the provincial conference concerning our party president Mr Sata,” Namutulo said. “I stand by my statement 100 per cent. Let those doubting Thomases find out next year.”

He said the issue of popularity between PF and UPND was a well-known fact.

“It’s common knowledge in Zambia if we have to look at the provinces. The other party only has one province, which is Southern Province. We are talking about strongholds here and PF has Lusaka, Copperbelt, Luapula and Northern Province,” Namutulo said.

“Even in a village if you are eating in a communal way; if this one brings four plates and then the other one brings only one plate who is likely to be popular between the two in that village? It’s the one who brought four plates.

“So I stand by my statement, that other one’s UPND official statement that’s his own opinion. What I said is the feeling of the province in our party that Mr Sata is the preferred candidate.”

Labels: BY-ELECTIONS, PF-UPND

posted by MrK @ 10:05 AM