PF national mobilization committee chairperson Richard Musukwa says the party will focus on job creation and improving the living standards of people to retain power in 2021.

And Musukwa says crooks, criminals and thugs will have no place in the party campaigns for the coming general election.

Speaking at a press briefing, Wednesday, Musukwa said the ruling party believed the 2021 elections would be anchored on numbers.

“I wanted to first of all emphasize that the Christmas present that we have for the people of Zambia is to ensure that PF is reorganized, re-energized, [and] re-boosted in terms of getting the new vibes for 2021 in terms of the elections that are going to be conducted. I want to state that the values of the PF remain the culture of ensuring that the pro-poor polices of the PF are implemented in order to fight poverty, in order to ensure we create jobs, in order to ensure we give a platform to our people across the country,” Musukwa, the Mines minister, said.

“Our focus and philosophy will be to ensure that we engage stakeholders across the length and breadth of our country, the marketeers, the bus drivers, the truck drivers, miners, teachers, nurses [and] people from all works of life in order to ensure that we retain power in 2021 and to ensure that the manifesto of PF of ensuring that we provide jobs [and] uplift the living standards of our people are fundamental to our foregoing. I wanted to quickly state that the 2021 election campaign of the PF will be anchored on statistics of numbers across the country.”

He said the 2021 election required serious focus and effort.

“This is not an election where we are just moving aimlessly or jumping up and about; this is an election that will be anchored on statistics of the people who believe in the principles of PF. I want to state clearly that PF will undertake a non-violent campaign trail across the Republic of Zambia in order to ensure that we retain power. PF will ensure that like before, we conduct and do our business within the confines of the law. In short, crooks, criminals and thugs will not be part of the campaign trail of the PF.”

And Musukwa, who is also Mines minister, said the party would not extort money from business houses for campaign materials.

“We would like to appeal to the Zambians that the PF mobilization committee is not a conduit to short circuit Zambians or indeed even go a step to ensure that it begins to extort money from the business community. We will run an open and transparent mobilization team that is going to ensure that resources and materials are mobilized within the structure of a well organized systems,” said Musukwa.