UPND MPs scared of approaching PF ministers to ask for development – Nakacinda

UPND MPs are failing to approach PF Cabinet Ministers to pursue development for fear of expulsion from their party, National Secretary of the Felix Mutati-led MMD faction Raphael Nakacinda has alleged.

Nakacinda made the remarks when he joined alliance partners Patriotic Front (PF) and Republican President Edgar Lungu for a rally to drum up support for the PF candidate in the Kafue Council Chairperson elections.

Nakacinda said people should be upset with political parties that are promoting divisions in the country.

He accused the UPND leader Hakainde Hichilema of “terrorizing” his MPs to the extent that they fear even interacting with MPs from PF or MMD because they are scared that they would be accused of wanting to defect.

“I was nominated by the President to parliament but what I found in parliament surprised me. Mr President where I sit in parliament is where opposition UPND MPs sit. UPND MPs are scared to even greet. When you try to greet them they first check who is watching them because they don’t want to be seen associating with us due to the fear that the message would reach their party president that this one was seen greeting an MP from MMD or PF. The politics of HH are that of hatred. When you ask my colleagues why they don’t want to interact with you they will tell you that we are told not to associate with you, he doesn’t want us to work with you people to bring development. We also want development in our areas but he tells us not to ask for our share of development from the President or Cabinet ministers. So our areas are getting little development projects because our president will not allow us to push for projects from government.

“And this HH wants to hold the entire country at ransom so that we don’t see development so that he can use that as a basis for his campaigns in 2021.

“Our council chairperson was chased from UPND because he was seen together with the Republican President in a cleaning exercise of the town of Kafue, what sort of a leader is he? Why should we vote for UPND council chairperson when you know that if he tries to ask for development from government he will be chased from the party. The job of the chairperson is to work with government in bringing development, a chairperson cannot use his money to bring development so it is illogical for someone to cause a by-election because a mayor wants to work with his government,” said Nakacinda who is a resident of Kafue.

The Mutati MMD faction have weighed in on the campaign trail of the council by-election in Kafue that was necessitated by the resignation of the UPND council chairperson Thomas Zulu.