NEWLY-ELECTED Lukashya PF member of parliament George Chisanga says he and the ruling party have got work to do in his constituency.

And Chisanga says the results of last Thursday’s by-election which he won with a landslide is an indication that the people still love the Patriotic Front.

But losing UPND candidate Davies Mulenga says he cannot get sick over his loss in a constituency, alleging that the PF victory was stolen.

In an interview, Chisanga, the former Law Association of Zambia president, promised the electorate in Lukashya that he would continue where the previous member of parliament, Mwenya Munkonge, left off.

Munkonge, who was an independent member of parliament, died in July, 2020.

“When the President came here, he made a clarion call to all the members of the party to make sure that we work extra hard to make sure that we deliver this constituency, not only for the victory but even for the percentage and if you have seen, almost 90 per cent of the vote came to us. Now that is a demonstration that Lukashya is a bedrock of the Patriotic Front, but also that the people of Lukashya are still in sync with what the Patriotic Front has been doing for them,” Chisanga said.

“But look, we have got work to do, if you ask me to tell you what work I am going to do, I am going to finish where Honorable Mwenya Munkonge left. Mwenya Munkonge had a plan for this constituency and he worked through the plan and that plan, I think, was also in sync with what the party was going to do in the constituency. So, it’s just a continuation of that plan until it comes to the end, then we can plan through the manifesto of the PF and the national development plan what we can do for the next five years when we come to contest next year.”

He said winning the Lukashya by-election was very exciting.

“It’s an exciting opportunity, myself and all members of the Patriotic Front in Lukashya constituency are happy and excited that we have delivered the victory that we had promised the central committee and the President,” Chisanga said.

He added that Lukashya had always been a PF stronghold, saying the loss in 2016 was a demonstration against an individual and not the party.

In the 2016 elections, the PF fielded Alfredah Kansembe Mwamba, who lost to Munkonge, an independent candidate.

“This is a rural constituency and going through the height and the breadth of the constituency, you will see the needs that people have and the kind of infrastructure development the Patriotic Front has put up to support the people’s needs. So, people are still with Patriotic Front. It must be made very clear that in 2016, the people of Lukashya just demonstrated against the individual, not the party itself. They loved this party because if they didn’t love the party, I can tell you that UPND would have won this vote but they lost. And we had an independent member of parliament who was, by the way, a member of the Patriotic Front. That just tells you how much love the people of Lukashya have for the Patriotic Front,” said Chisanga. “I have been working here from 2006, I speak from a standpoint of knowledge that people love the party and they love the candidate that they have voted for because they know this candidate from way back. You know, there was this negative talk of ‘no, they don’t know him’, etc. If they didn’t know him, you were not going to see the results you are seeing now.”

And Mulenga, who defected from PF to the opposition party after being left out at adoption stage, said the loss was just a minor setback as he would start preparing for the 2021 elections.

“How can I get sick of the results? When I was in PF, we lost six times with Mr Sata, 10 years losing, now this ka small one honestly…and I am sure you all know that they just snatched it, it’s just a ka stolen one temporarily; seven months [from now], I am going to get it,” said Mulenga.