Thu, 15 Dec 2016 09:40:50 +0000
THE fourteen Independent members of Parliament (MPs) who want to work with Patriotic Front (PF) are in fact members of the ruling party and should not be chased or alienated, Kelvin Bwalya Fube has observed.
Mr Fube who is PF deputy elections chairperson said there was urgent need for the governing party to re-think its strategies cautioning that the kind of rhetoric party members were hearing from some leaders was uncalled for.
Mr Fube said the future of the PF did not lie in issuing threats to structures, warning that intimidating people could only help weaken the party.
He wondered why some people within the party were expressing dissent on Independent MPs when it was clear that they were supporting the PF and ready to work with the Government.
Mr Fube explained that had the 14 Independent MPs being against PF, they would have aligned themselves with opposition political parties.
“The 14 MPs in Parliament today that want to work with PF are members of the ruling party. They must not be discarded. The fact that they are insisting on seeing President Edgar Lungu, tells you that they still want to belong to PF. So why are we chasing them? Ask yourselves, why don’t they want to see HH (Hakainde Hichilema) or Nawakwi?” Mr Fube wondered.
And Mr Fube said time had come for PF to heal from the in-fighting which characterised the adoption process in the August 2016 general elections because party mobilisation had continued to suffer. Mr. Fube said the hullabaloo that had characterised certain provinces were a result of some provincial chairmen taking advantage of their positions in the party to propagate personal interests such as their business at the expense of the unity of the party.
He stated that only elections would calm the situation in such instances because most of the provincial chairpersons were hand-picked but cautioned that while that was ideal at that time, the current situation in the ruling party called for elections.
He said while the challenges that the ruling party was facing were not insurmountable, employing threats and intimidation to members as a way of ending the squabbles would only exacerbate the situation.
“This party needs to heal from the in-fighting that have characterised the recent adoptions leading to the general elections. Some provincial chairpersons are just not political animals; they are businessmen and traders. PF needs leadership that can drive government policies and programmes and not personal business agendas. Without elections, these hand-picked chairmen will destroy the party before the next convention.
“If anyone says there are no problems in PF that would be a lie. If someone says that most of the problems we are facing are not self-inflicted, that would be a lie too. This party is big and strong but leadership must give confidence and hope to the cadres because we need the numbers,” he said.
