Africa-Press – Zambia. Patriotic Front (PF) Presidential hopeful and former Zambia’s Ambassador to Ethiopia Emmanuel Mwamba has warned that the PF can die if it does not abandon the old habits that made it lose the 2021 General Election.
Mr. Mwamba said the PF should move away from slogans of rebranding and focus on practical steps of reviving the party he described as a sleeping giant. He said the PF is in dire need of new leadership, new energies, and new thinking to regain the lost confidence among Zambians.
Speaking on Radio Phoenix’s Let the People Talk Programme on Tuesday, Mr. Mwamba said the PF cannot afford internal squabbles, especially since it is in a weaker state as an opposition party.
“As a presidential candidate my path is very clear, the party needs to integrate new people. The party needs to abandon some of the policies that made it unpopular. The party needs to accept the mistakes that were made in the past and begin this charm offensive to the Zambians where you assure them that yes we made mistakes but yes we have repented on these matters but here is a party that is contributing to the democratic path of this country,” Mr. Mwamba said. He admitted that rebuilding then PF won’t be easy.
“The opposition should not die, the PF should not die. So we have an emphatic approach to the Patriotic Front, I think that we need a lot of energy to rebuild a party that has just lost an election, we know what happened to UNIP, and we know what happened to MMD. Recognizing those challenges and recognizing just the apathy that greets a party that has lost because the people would tell you the PF is dead, PF has no future, PF did so many things against us why are you even trying to speak to us about it. So here is a broken relationship a party has with Zambians so when you recognize that there is a broken relationship you embark on a path to then build that relationship and it is not easy to win back the trust of Zambians,” Mr. Mwamba said.
“It is not easy to tell them that the mistakes that we made are walking away from those mistakes, to tell them that in a democratic dispensation like Zambia you need an opposition party, a strong opposition party and the PF is in that space. It has about 50 Members of Parliament. It has structures countrywide that really haven’t even left; it has a path of ideology to the poor people and to workers. It has a very solid foundation despite its economic loss. So there is something very big there that can be revived. It is like a sleeping giant but it can die if we do certain things, if we are casual about the PF. If we adopt the bad habits that made us lose elections and we carry them into this current dispensation then the party will die,” he said.
Mr. Mwamba is promising to offer unique leadership if elected PF party President. “Recognising the difficulties and challenges of internal squabbling that can actually destroy the political party, we cannot afford internal squabbles, especially that we are in the opposition because we are now in a weaker state than we were in a ruling party. You know icikalika abantu pa musumba bwali now that ubwali tapali what will you do? It is the values of the party and ideologies of the party that should keep you together,” he said.
“We have come, people like I, we have come and said we can do politics differently, we can recognise the demographics that vote; we can speak to their issues. You have seen that have not dwelt on discussing the internal party issues of the Patriotic Front because for me I think a leadership that is required is a leadership that speaks to national issues, that promotes discourse that builds this country, that deviates and abandons those old habits of insults,” Mr. Mwamba said.
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