Former State House Permanent Secretary Emmanuel Chilubanama the Patriotic Front has become too divided, with camps at all levels.

And Chilubanama has announced that he will contest for the position of Lusaka Province chairman in the upcoming intra-party elections.

At a media briefing today, Chilubanama, who was fired by President Edgar Lungu in 2016, observed that the ruling party had become too divided and it was important to admit that fact.

“Dear colleagues, to be honest and truthful to ourselves, the full component of peace in the party, even in our province, is at risk, seriously so. Divisions and camps have emerged in the party, this one does not talk to the other and vice versa. Unfortunately so, this has permeated to all levels, be it at ministers level, councillors and unfortunately so, we the grassroots.
Character assassination is now the order of the day. It seems like the bigger the lie, the bigger the package paid out,” Chilubanama said.

He said the spirit of disunity was being fueled by leaders, knowingly or unknowingly.

“Unity, how much unity is there in the party again? Especially at provincial level again, which is our main concern. The consultations I was having prior to the decision that I am going to share with you, it came to my attention, very clearly so, bane, tatwikatene (my friends, we are not united). We don’t admit, that is problem number one. We admit, I am telling you, we would have solved the problem by about 20 per cent. And then we tell ourselves, how do we go about to foster this unity and inculcate the sense of unity in our friends, brothers, sisters? Like I said, these divisions are even at members of parliament, ministers, councillors and coming to the lower organs, it is worse because the spirit of disunity is precipitated by our leaders and leadership. They do this either knowingly or unknowingly, that is what I have discovered. Currently you see one group of youths not wanting to associate with another, certain youths cannot go to certain areas, in the same party,” Chilubanama said.

And Chilubanama announced that he would contest the position of Lusaka chair.

“You have heard the speculations on social media as to whether I have intentions to contest the position of provincial chairperson in the forthcoming intra-party elections…in my deliberations, I will answer in the affirmative whether or not I am participating in the forthcoming provincial elections. I would like to share and look at the current status of the party especially at provincial level. I would like to confine myself to politics at provincial level,” said Chilubanama.

“Ladies and gentlemen, these are only intra party elections, they are not inter, you don’t have to jostle and kill somebody for the sake of assuming a position, hell no! The idea should be to agree to disagree, not to fight physically, but to fight with ideas on how to make this party a better party to be in.”