Edgar Lungu Says He Takes Alcohol Moderately Like A Normal Person

Chishimba Kambwili yesterday declared his candidature for the PF presidency, appealing to the conscience of party members to avoid choosing a weak person who can be easily manipulated as a leader.
Meanwhile, Edgar Lungu said he is not reckless but takes alcohol moderately like a normal person does every evening.And Robert Sichinga, who is also seeking adoption for presidency, says the PF needs a sober candidate to win the coming election. In an interview at his residence shortly after he relinquished his position as secretary general and filed his nomination for possible adoption as the party’s presidential candidate in the coming election, Lungu, the defence and justice minister, said there were fellow contenders who wanted to bring his name into disrepute by insisting that he was a drunkard. “I don’t drink as much as they portray. In the evening, I take a beer or two like any other. Some people take stronger drinks like Whisky and wine and so on, but surely should my drinking be an issue? How about those who are homosexuals, who have got peculiarities totally out of nature but they are free to talk about other people and that is the beauty …I have never failed to do any job. I have never been fired because of being drunk.
I respect my timing to drink and time for work. Others are so much to the bottle that they can’t do without a beer in their office…,” he said. “So when a guy is yapping, that I am a thief, when I am not, I am a drunk, when I am not a drunkard, I have no family when I have a good family, I should just dismiss those. People will judge for themselves. You can imagine a tabloid covered me from page one to the last, saying ‘Edgar Lungu that, Edgar Lungu this’. If I was an ordinary citizen, I would have made money out of those guys.
I will continue with my political calling.” Lungu said he would not waste time reacting to or instituting legal suits against what people say about him. “It’s cheap! As a candidate, I should speak about my positive attributes, about me as Edgar Lungu instead of others who are competing,” he said. “They have got no story to tell the people, so they want to speak ill of me. They have talked about me having stolen, me being a criminal, they have talked about me being a drunk, but because it is politics, I have ignored them and I will keep ignoring them.” Lungu said it did not have to take a genius to predict that he was winning.
“Even if we go to the general conference, I am thumping those guys convincingly but what we want is to pick someone through consensus,” he said. And Lungu said the gesture by a Cabinet minister, whom he declined to mention, to pay his nomination fee of K20,000, was evidence that there was goodwill for him from a number of members. He, however, said he should not be perceived as a pauper. Lungu has since adopted central committee member Willie Nsanda as his campaign manager. And scores of PF supporters from various districts and constituencies around the Copperbelt attended Kambwili’s address which was held at Kitwe’s Nkana Cultural Centre in Wusakile township. Kambwili, who is sports minister and also Roan member of parliament, said all well-meaning party members must rally behind him because he was an action-oriented man and a founder member of the PF.
“Since most of us front runners for the PF presidency are serving members of parliament, let us find out the developmental projects that are on the ground in the constituencies of aspirants. We all knew who president Sata was when it came to delivery of service to the people. He succeeded as a parliamentarian and all his works are there to be seen by all.Therefore, evaluating what all of us have done is a starting point to determine who will take the party forward with great success,” he said. Kambwili said the PF and the nation was in need of a bold Republican president, ready to act decisively on behalf of the people and to be a voice for the voiceless.
He said even at a time the PF was formed, he was convinced that it would one day preside over national affairs with Michael Sata as president of the Republic because they were working hard and all the leaders of the party at that time were result-oriented. Kambwili further praised acting president Dr Guy Scott for demonstrating true leadership in the nation since the demise of president Sata. And during a briefing at Fairview Hotel yesterday where he announced his candidature for the PF presidency, Sichinga, who is commerce minister, said the violence that had been witnessed from PF cadres since president Michael Sata’s death was as a result of not having sober characters in leadership. “If we are to win this presidential by-election, we need a sober candidate.
I don’t smoke or drink,” he said. And Sichinga, who pledged to donate K50,000 towards the successful holding of a general conference, said the PF would be seen to be undemocratic if it does not go to the general conference to elect its leader.
Sichinga said what some central committee members had been advocating for that the body had the powers to set its own rules and guidelines was different from the constitution.