PF Secretary General Davies Mwila yesterday laughed hysterically when he was asked to comment on how Kelvin Bwalya Fube’s new political course would impact the ruling party.

KBF, who was deputy campaign manager in 2016 and played a key role in ensuring that President Edgar Lungu became the PF’s presidential candidate after Michael Sata died, has hinted that he wants to join the presidential race in 2021 to rescue Zambia from “frightening leadership”.

On Monday, KBF also vowed to recruit all members of the PF who believe in Sata’s principals into a crusade to redeem the spirit of the party founding father.

“I don’t agree with the people around him (Lungu), but I can’t help it. Those are the people he is comfortable with. I have a lot of people who still love PF and are still sympathetic to the spirit of Michael Chilufya Sata and still want this party to continue but we must change and drop a few people. The PF needs a lot of pruning. Some of the people who have come into this party know nothing but they want to bring ideas of confusion because they are sitting somewhere in a privileged position, confusing our masses. We are saying Sata’s spirit must come back. The remnant of the old members who know what Sata stood for, I am appealing to them, join me in this crusade,” said KBF.

“The President must remove his veil and it must be seen to be removed so that people in office today are exposed. And the Zambian people must feel that the President is not shielding these people. That is a very important decision [which] the President must take personally. Now, if people out there begin to talk about my President, the President of this country, and say ‘the reason why he hasn’t disciplined so and so is because so and so is doing deals with the President.’ That’s not a very fair statement on the President. He must cleanse himself from that, unless what is being said is true. It sends wrong signal.”

But when asked to react to KBF’s sentiments in an interview, Tuesday, Mwila laughed hysterically before saying that only a branch chairman could respond to the Lusaka lawyer as he was just an ordinary member of the ruling party.

“First and foremost, KBF is an ordinary member of the party and the Secretary General of the party cannot respond to an ordinary member of the party. There are too many members of the party, in thousands. There is no way as Secretary General I will respond to each ordinary member of the party. It is better I tell the constituency chairman to respond to him. He doesn’t hold any party position in the party. So, there is no way a Secretary General will be responding to ordinary members,” Mwila said.

“He is free to do whatever he wants to do [and] it ends there. Even if he insults me, I can’t discipline him. He is an ordinary member of the party. It is very difficult. You get my point? Even if he insults me, where do I start from? Even a provincial chairman where does he start from? It’s a branch official who is supposed to discipline him. It’s a problem. If he was a district official, I was going to give instructions to the province to deal with him, but he is an ordinary member of the party. Where do I start from? I instruct the branch?”

And asked what the future of the party was, since a lot of party officials had shown presidential ambitions whilst others were leaving to form their own parties, Mwila said all those aspiring to take over the party were just jokers.

“The party is strong. Let me tell you, Eric Chanda has been saying that; ‘NDC has gained popularity’ and they are ready for any elections. You ask them, they have not filled the councillor for North-Western [province], it means that they are not ready. Two, you are going to get the [by-election] results tomorrow (today), if NDC will get any seat from the 16 local government elections. These are just jokers, they are not there. Yes, they will continue talking, insulting but on the ground they are not there because they cannot win an election. We have nine local government elections by the UPND and we expect to get more than 60-70 per cent from the nine wards. And they are not going to defeat us in our wards, they will not grab any,” said Mwila.