Maravi

It’ll be tragic if MMD loses, says Rupiah

It’ll be tragic if MMD loses, says Rupiah
By Chibaula Silwamba
Thu 02 June 2011, 04:00 CAT

PRESIDENT Rupiah Banda yesterday said it would be tragic for the MMD and the country if he lost this yesr’s elections. And President Banda asked former diplomat Milton Phiri to ask for food from him instead of lying that he had foreign parentage.

Addressing a press briefing at State House yesterday, President Banda said he would win the elections and losing this election would not be part of his failures.

“My task is to fight hard day and night and ensure that we win this election because if we don’t win this election, from what we are hearing from our colleagues and from the records of some of these people who are standing and want to run this country, I think it will be tragic if the MMD and I don’t win this election,” President Banda said.

“I believe we will win this election and we will achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) much sooner than the target deadline.”

President Banda said every bonafide member of the MMD would be free to apply to stand for parliamentary and local government positions. However, he said party members facing court cases would not be adopted as candidates.

He castigated Mike Mulongoti and George Mpombo for denouncing him and his government. And President Banda said former High Commissioner to Malawi Milton Phiri’s claim that his parents were Malawians was a lie.

“It’s not very nice kind of politics; first of all, it doesn’t even matter even if they my parents were not Zambian, if according to the Constitution I am allowed to stand, even if both my mother and father were not Zambians, it’s okay. How many of you here your mothers come from here and your fathers come from Congo, from Malawi? It doesn’t matter. It’s not true in my case,” President Banda said.

“In any case, why would Mr Phiri, just a young man, he wouldn’t even know where my parents came from, but why would he suddenly tell people that my father and mother were foreigners? Why didn’t he say so when I was acting President, when I was elected President in 2008, when I was Vice-President, when I was foreign affairs minister, minister of mines, mayor of Lusaka etc?

I have been in this country; many of you were born and you found me here. You have always heard the name. The only one who said I never heard your name is my wife, she told me that I never heard your name before until we first met.”

He said both his parents were from Chiparamba area in Chipata District. “My mother from chief Chikuwe and my father from Misholo. So why would Mr Phiri bring such kind of lies? To bring hatred? Is he hoping that the court will say, ‘okay’ because he is saying he wrote the letter to the Chief Justice,” President Banda said.

“We have been looking for that letter. Have you press aide Dickson Jere found it? Ana wenye ula munthu, he is a liar. He can’t write a letter like that because he knows he is lying.

They tried to do it with president Frederick Chiluba, president Kenneth Kaunda. It’s cheap politics.” He said the Constitution stated that anyone who was in Zambia in 1964 at the time of independence was Zambian. He said people that were making noise like Phiri had served in senior government position but were now bankrupt.

“It is those who were ministers, ambassadors, general managers. During that time when they were in office thought these things will never end; they were drinking all the money, marrying more than one wife and so on. Now they are bankrupt and they want to blame you and me,” President Banda said.

“If Mr Phiri has nothing to do, he should just come, if he can’t reach let him look for someone and say, ‘please mubauzye a Banda that ninjala yani nyokola please tell Mr Banda that I am starving. He shouldn’t be telling lies.” President Banda said he would vote from his homeland of Chipata at Nyakutwa Primary School.

President Banda said the money his government had borrowed from capital markets plus mine taxes would be used to tar roads. President Banda said it was not correct that the mines he launched, Ichimpe in Copperbelt Province and Kalumbila in North Western Province, were not approved by the Environmental Council of Zambia.

Labels: MMD, RUPIAH BANDA

posted by MrK @ 9:13 PM