Nevers Mumba says there is no vacancy in the presidency of MMD.
Mumba, the MMD president, warned that those entertaining calls for former president Rupiah Banda’s return to active politics should be mindful that this would create differences between him and the latter.
Mumba, who appeared on ZNBC’s Sunday Interview programme, said this when he was asked if calls for Banda’s return to the MMD leadership and possibly the Republican Presidency had been haunting him.
“I have a good relationship with president Banda and I think that if there was any information of this nature, it would be something that would be discussed and I would know about. He has not mentioned to that degree that there is any need for him or he wants to come back,” he said.
“But let me make it very clear: at the moment, I am president of the Movement for Multiparty Democracy. I came in through an election and you must remember that the respect I have for the president is to the extent that I have associated with him and I know what is important to president Rupiah Banda. I don’t think in any way, he would wish to do anything like that, anything that would disadvantage his party from winning the 2016 elections.”
Mumba said the ‘talk’ about Banda’s comeback was not in any way romantic.
He said that he would not debate what Banda had not addressed, which was not even a subject of discussion within the NEC.
“There is no vacancy for the presidency in MMD at the moment, so it cannot be discussed in NEC because there is no vacancy,” he said.
Mumba said he did not want to be distracted from his “project” which was God-given.
“I do not think that at this time, I am going to move away from concentrating on rebuilding this party to start to debate a subject that has not been put on the table by the former president,” Mumba said.
“Some of our members think it’s romantic to talk about putting a wedge between me and president Banda. It’s not romantic. I can say this. If another fight begins in MMD, the losers are the MMD members themselves because there will be no political party if we start to fight. The members of the party have fought several battles to be where we are and a lot of them are battle-weary right now. What they want is some space of peace and re-organisation to prepare for 2016. I think that I need to send a warning to a lot of people… some of the people that will come to me to say ‘President Banda is coming back and he is going to say this to you’. I have refused to entertain those people.”
And Mumba has warned what he termed ‘tired members’ to excuse themselves from the party.
“All that we are saying is if you feel tired, that you really can’t participate…because we cannot continue using the same people for campaigns,” said Mumba.
“Everybody needs to do something and put in a little to make sure that the party moves forward.”
