Rainbow Party general secretary Wynter Kabimba says it is disappointing the PF government has failed to move away from the MMD’s poor governance record.

In an interview, Kabimba said most of the problems Zambia was facing today had their roots in MMD.

“The problems we have today in terms of governance have their roots in MMD. The problem that we have with a weak state intelligence system have the roots with the MMD; the problems you have of caderism have the roots in MMD. What has disappointed me about PF is that I thought that PF would move away from that culture, will obliterate that culture completely and kill it and move in a different direction,” Kabimba said.

“The same people that financed MMD in 1991 are the same people that finaced to the large extent the PF today. If you are talking about state capture, it started with MMD and I know them myself; it started with MMD, that is where it started. We didn’t have criminals having access to State House under Kaunda (Kenneth). I was old enough; I was already working, I started (during) the transition from UNIP to MMD. They didn’t have gifts being given to the president at State House. You never heard the president giving money to the citizen or donating money to the church under Kaunda; we never heard that. All that started under MMD.”

He said embracing of MMD members by PF has brought the MMD culture into the ruling party.

“My disappointment with PF is that it has fallen into the same habits of this MMD culture that is my disappointment with PF and Edgar and his group. When I was in PF, I argued with Mr (Micheal) Sata many at times; I told him ‘sir, this is what you did in MMD and we should be moving away from this.’ That was my argument I had regularly with president Sata,” he recalled.

“I used to tell him ‘there is no need for HH to be arrested; there is nothing wrong that he has done, he is just expressing an opinion. So, we can’t send police to arrest him! Leave him!’ And HH didn’t even know that I was having those arguments with Micheal Sata and nobody even knew that I wanted to contribute to a new democratic landscape.”

Kabimba said the PF had completely deviated away from its original vision.

“There are a lot of wrong things that the PF is doing, a lot and a lot of things that they would have done better. Having been a member of the PF looking at the vision that we had started with, they have completely veered off that vision! I don’t support the caderism in PF. I don’t support that cadres should be collecting illegal levies from poor marketeers at the market, I don’t support that PF cadres should be collecting illegal levies at bus stops,” said Kabimba.

“I don’t support that PF cadres should be harassing members of the public at bus stops. I don’t believe that cadres at Soweto (Market) must be harassing small-scale farmers; I don’t support all that rubbish, nonsense.”