MMD Has Declared UPND It’s Number One Political Enemy

MMD vice-president Michael Kaingu yesterday accused the UPND of having a naive-driven agenda to completely erase the MMD from the Zambian political landscape.
“Number one political enemy that I have is UPND; number two is PF. UPND, because of what it is doing to us. UPND wants to completely erase MMD from the political surface of Zambia and that I hate. Because of that, I have come to hate the party. It is not the people that I hate, it is the action,” Kaingu said. “I am injured and because of that, I am having difficulties with them. Number two enemy is PF, because they cheated the people of Zambia that they were going to better their lives.”
Kaingu explained that the UPND was busy obliterating the MMD party structures on the pretext that the MMD was a finished party.
“Most of our serving members have been ‘poached’ by UPND to stand on their ticket in 2016,” he said. “We are on the same side of the coin. It is expected of them to work with us, but naivety has driven them to a level where they think they can do it alone.”
Kaingu said the MMD itself was his third political enemy because of the poor leadership.
“It is shameful that we have failed to organise ourselves to a level where we can provide alternative leadership,” he said. “A few misfits who are with president Mumba, they are saying that we want to oust or remove him because he is Bemba. We are the people who voted for him.”
Kaingu said the MMD lost elections in Bemba-speaking areas even when Mumba was its president.
“What we have seen in this country is once a politician fails, the quickest club that he picks…is the tribal club,” said Kaingu. “We have just lost and we have lost because we are not inspiring.”
And commenting on assertions that he had been paid by the PF to cause confusion in the MMD, Kaingu said the problem in Zambia was that people judged others based on hearsay and not through personal contact.
He said those that had been casting aspersions over his meeting with justice minister and PF secretary-general, Wynter Kabimba were evil, especially that some people that were ‘working’ with Mumba were also meeting some senior government officials.
Kaingu said politics was about interacting with other political stakeholders and that he was looking forward to such more meetings, not for any pecuniary gain as some were speculating, but to express his views on pertinent national issues.
“It is foolish for somebody to think because for them, they are evil, when they get to people in the opposition they can only go there for money,” Kaingu said. “If I talk to Kabimba, he Mumba thinks I have sold the party, shameful! He has never been a member of parliament. It is not only Kabimba I have met….”
Kaingu said the issue was about MMD going to an extraordinary convention to usher in an inspiring leadership that could provide alternative leadership to the PF.
“The reason why MMD must go to the convention is because in its form, it can’t win any election,” Kaingu said. “What is happening in the MMD is the MPs are fatigued because of the donations that they have been giving. I know because I am in-charge of mobilisation. Most of them members of parliament will withdraw their monthly contributions and I will be one of them. Probably, I will lead the group that will withdraw their monthly contributions.”
He said some of the money that the MMD legislators had been contributing to the party had gone to pay for Mumba’s security guards and his personal legal fees.
“We can go to get the cheques from the bank to prove that. We were donating K100,000 per month, now it has been dwindling…. Such a colossal sum, can somebody be spending it without giving any account for it?” Kaingu wondered.
Kaingu said although all party leaders should take collective responsibility for the poor state the MMD was in, currently, Mumba should be blamed more.
“If we don’t go to the convention, MMD is finished,” he said. “Some of us who have tried to help out will just withdraw. We will just be looking at him.”
Kaingu said Mumba was scared of interacting with MMD cadres because of his habit of only travelling to different parts of the country at night.