UPND responds to Lucky Mulusa

Lucky Mulusa

We fail where to start from because we consider Lucky Mulusa a comrade in the fight against injustice and oppression which we are subjected to under this PF government. We are not ashamed to say, hitherto, we have admired Mulusa as a brave and courageous man. We have in mind how he risked his position in parliament by exposing the hypocrisy of DPP Mutembo Nchito. We also remember how he marched from Chingola to Solwezi to protest against the PF’s maladministration.

But now our ‘hero’ Mulusa has turned around to accuse us of being behind the troubles that besiege his party the MMD. He says we ‘want Nevers Mumba to continue as MMD president’ so that he ‘can split votes against the PF in 2016’. We are not fools not to know that yes, the MMD will split votes against the PF in some areas and that in other areas they will split votes against us. So for us it does not matter who the MMD president is.

If Mulusa thinks we are afraid of him taking over the MMD presidency, then he has another think coming. We are already hammering him in his own back yard Solwezi central.

He wants to pontificate about people moving from MMD to UPND. As far as we know there is freedom of association in this country. Mulusa himself is our former member. But he moved on because he believed the grass was greener in the MMD.

And he goes on to says a few other colourful things about us. We admit its rather flattering to see how Mulusa is obsessed us. It is clear in his heart of hearts, Mulusa knows that ‘Haleisa Haleisa’!

Not wanting to be involved with the MMD wrangles, we struggle a little bit here but we still marvel at the issues that Mulusa highlights as the reasons why his president must leave;

• That we have failed to stay engaged with our structures and our general membership;
• That we are bleeding membership at a very fast rate and the opinion is beginning to crystalize that we are indeed a finished party;
• That we are not attracting new members; and
• That we have lost relevance.

Surely Lucky, you expect your president to go through out this vast country strengthening your party structures and and recruiting new members? Can he manage this by himself? If senior members of your party like yourself have this kind of mentality, then we no longer wonder why MMD is dying.

Also how is it the fault of a party president that a former MP loses a ward election? Does such an experienced politician need a president to hold his hand to win a ward election? If that is the case, then its clear MMD is in serious problems.

Mulusa says his party MMD had offered to work with us and that we turned this down because we ‘would still be beneficiaries of the demise of the MMD’. We ask Mulusa; when did the MMD write to us about this and when did we write back to decline the offer’?

What did Mulusa and his friends say about us especially after they had resounding victories in Chipata and Mkaika? Didn’t they say that they would participate in every election on their own because they are bigger than we are! For good measure, they even reminded us of the composition of the parliament.

But we know what Mulusa’s pressure is. Have you noticed that Mulusa started this crusade against us soon after his seat was nullified. It is like Mulusa expected us not to field a candidate in the up coming by-election in Solwezi central.

When we went ahead to start preparing for that by-election, Mulusa then accused us of finding a person with a name like his so that we can ‘mislead the voters’. Isn’t that childish thinking? Other people with the name Mulusa should not contest elections anywhere where Lucky is contesting? Is that being a democrat Mr Mulusa?

Mr Mulusa leave us out of your crusades in the MMD. And we sincerely hope that you have not run out of luck in Solwezi central.