FORMER PF secretary general Davies Mwila says the only people defecting to UPND are businessmen who want “eat with them”.

Commenting on UPND National Chairperson Stephen Katuka’s remarks that the party would not win the 2026 elections if it chased away new members, Mwila said nothing could entice someone to join UPND.

He also said UPND was not growing because of its failure to fulfil campaign promises.

“Politics is about numbers yes and you cannot deny people that want to join you. I think any political party that wants to continue governing the country or have the numbers needs to embrace other people coming from other political parties. However, very few people are following them if you have noticed. Only those who want to go and eat with them like businessmen, because they want to go and get business from there. Those are the people who are following them. There is nothing that can entice someone to join because there is nothing else to follow there,” Mwila said.

“So this does not affect the PF at all because we are intact. They can only dismantle PF if they start fulfilling all the promises that they made. Failure to do that, they will not. People can only follow them when they are doing the right thing. They should reduce the bag of mealie meal from K180 to K50 and they should also reduce fuel prices as well as the exchange rate and people will follow them and definitely PF will not be there. But as long as they are not doing that, PF will start growing bigger. That is the interpretation.”

Mwila said UPND’s continued stay in power was dependent on fulfilling their campaign promises.

“The UPND’s stay in power is dependent on the fulfilling of promises. Once they fulfill the promises, people will follow them. That is how politics are. If people are happy with the governance of the UPND, they will follow them. If they are not happy, they will not follow them and they will follow the opposition. It is very clear,” said Mwila.

“I can tell you that no one is joining them. UPND is not growing and this is because of their failure to fulfill the promises. It cannot grow. It will only grow bigger when they start fulfilling their promises because people will be following them. They will know that there is honey there and without honey, they will not follow them and the opposition will start getting the numbers from them.”