Mutati practicing primitive politics – Nevers
MMD faction leader Nevers Mumba has charged that his rival Felix Mutati is leading his political career into extinction with his “primitive politics”.
Reacting to yesterday’s fracas where Mutati’s cadres attempted to drag him out of a radio booth at a radio station where he was attending an interview, Dr. Mumba says Mutati is practicing old and primitive politics.
The rivalry between Dr. Mumba and Mutati stretches back seven years when they battled it out to succeed Rupiah Banda as president of the former ruling party. Dr. Mumba emerged victorious on that occasion but four years later, Mutati was to fire back when he, along with former President Banda and Dr. Mumba’s erstwhile right hand man Raphael Nakacinda organised a convention in the run up to the 2016 general elections where Mutation was elected MMD president.
But Dr. Mumba promptly challenged the legality of the convention in the courts of law, arguing that Mutati and several others who participated in the 2016 convention were not members of the MMD as they had been expelled from the party.
The long drawn-out court battle for who is the legitimate leader of the MMD nearly culminated into violence on Wednesday, when a group of pro-Mutati youths led by Gerald Chiluba and Prince Ndoyi invaded United Voice Radio Station in Lusaka to try and manhandle Dr. Mumba, who was on air at time, in a bid to stop him from “masquerading as MMD president”.
But in response to the incident, Dr Mumba said the action by the cadres Wednesday morning is a clear indication that Mutati is panicking.
“My brother Mutati has sent some youths to attack me. It is very unfortunate that instead of encouraging and empowering these youths to do constructive things, he is sending them to do ugly things which his own children can’t do,” Dr. Mumba said, adding “He is panicking because the world now knows that his 2016 illegal convention was a failed coup.”
Meanwhile, Mutati has directed all queries over the matter to MMD faction National Secretary Raphael Nakachinda who has since disowned the cadres.