Wynter Kabimba has charged that the leaders of the newly established Socialist Party left the Rainbow Party after they different on their beliefs in God and on receiving funding from homosexual organisations.

But Socialist Party General Secretary Dr Cosmas Musumali says although the Rainbow Party leader made unfounded allegations, he will not engage in a confrontation with his former boss.

Speaking on Millennium Radio’s The Interview programme, Tuesday, Kabimba said he parted ways with the founders of the Socialist Party because they tried to convince him to accept funding from homosexuals and to denounce his belief in God.

“This issue needs to be clarified, why did we have differences in the Rainbow Party with our colleagues? Firstly, we disagreed with the type of people that they wanted to bring into the party as financiers. We disagreed with their sexual orientation. We are not so desperate that we can get money from anybody into the party. So when we looked at some of the characters whom they brought, some of whom attended the launch, and their sexual orientation, vis a vis our moral standing as a political party, and a political party which exists in a Christian Nation, we said no,” Kabimba said.

“Point number two, we refused to accept the view that socialism means that you should not pray to God. That socialism means that there is no God out there and therefore, when you have a meeting, you must not pray to God. We rejected that. I was very interested to listen to the late physicist Stephen Hawkin who died a few weeks ago, who made a very instructive statement as a scientist. Before he died, he said ‘science cannot prove that there is no God’. Here, we have our colleagues who thought that they were more educated, who thought that they were more socialist than some of us and they must drive this agenda to us that if they are going to continue as members of this party, then we must agree with them that God does not exist. So these were fundamental areas of disagreement. And therefore, because they found that a big number of us could not subscribe to those views which we thought were crazy, they couldn’t build the pressure, they tried to rally people within the party against me, they even tried to buy people off in the party against me and they failed. The last straw that broke the camel’s back was their departure from the party so were happy and we still wish them well.”

He said he had more information to divulge but he did not want to prejudice the well being of the Socialist Party.

“I am here to tell the truth. I don’t hide behind social media where you post something anonymously and then you yourself after you have posted that you start posting comments. For me, I come to a radio programme like this and tell the truth. And I want somebody from the Socialist Party or anywhere else to challenge me on this programme then I can give them more of the details which I don’t want to do at this time because I don’t want to prejudice the well being of the Socialist Party,” Kabimba said.

He challenged the founders of the Socialist Party to prove their allegations that he got a bag of money from State House.

“There is an interesting phenomenon about the Socialist Party. In the literal language, if you brought Chinua Achebe here today from his grave, he would actually say the story has been told. What is this story? The story has been told that against all the lies, against all the propaganda that were being run by our colleagues who are now in the Socialist Party, one of this propaganda was that they actually broke away from the Rainbow Party because Wynter Kabimba and Robert Chikwelete were collecting money from Edgar Lungu, they were going to State House at night to go and collect money and that that money was being shared between the two of us. And they credited themselves as running a better intelligence system than the state security apparatus, that they had evidence to that effect. I have challenged them on many media platforms that they should produce that evidence and I am still challenging them even today,” Kabimba said.

“I want somebody to phone in and tell this country when I was ever seen at State House with President Lungu or any other officer. The latest which they have now, which is coming from their members was that they left because Wynter is going to be the running mate to Edgar Lungu in 2021.”

He said the only reason they broke away from the Rainbow Party was because they didn’t want to be led.

“The truth of the matter is that they broke away from the Rainbow Party because they didn’t want to be led. They want to lead. Because the idea of the Socialist Party is as old as the Rainbow Party. They mooted it immediately after we registered the Rainbow Party. The first attempt they made was that we should go for elections after the 2016 presidential and general election, that we must go and elect another leadership. And we said no because the national congress of the Rainbow Party was not coming until 2020,” said Kabimba.

“They went to Muchinga and said ‘in fact, we have come to tell you that the name of the party has changed from the Rainbow Party to the Socialist Party and the reason why we have done that is because Wynter Kabimba is sick out there in Lusaka so we thought we must have a new leadership before he dies’. So this is the story as it has been told and it is very interesting that what goes round comes round so I was laughing to myself as I watched the clip of our former colleagues in the Rainbow Party being paraded that these are men of integrity, honest men. I have just been listening to Cosmas Musumali’s interview on Radio Phoenix as I was driving to the studio. We wish them well.”

Reacting to Kabimba, Dr Musumali told News Diggers in an interview that he was shocked with Kabimba’s attack.

“What is shocking is that despite me having come out of the Rainbow Party, I have always held comrade Kabimba in high esteem. I think regardless of what you may think about him, he has played a significant role in the politics of Zambia and hopefully he will continue to play that role. He has been a national leader and he has been in the opposition for a very long period of time, he is a technocrat and he has done his job pretty well. He is a person that, those who have worked with him know his capacities,” Dr Musumali said.

“We all come with our baggage in the public domain and I think what is important is that we must learn how to handle that so that the Zambian people that we serve are not fed with lies. I don’t think that our people deserve that. The issue of me wanting to assume power is unfounded. I am not interested in power in terms of position. My interest is the socialist transformation of our motherland. Any position I am given to serve will be sufficient for me. I have never in my life been obsessed with positions, it’s not in my nature. And I am not the kind of person who engages in a confrontation with my leader, and comrade Wynter Kabimba was my leader. I have never and I will never disrespect his position in society.”

He said the Socialist party was not a Christians organisation, but embraced members from all other religions.

“The other issue about Christianity, I find it sad because the Socialist Party is an organisation for all Zambians. We have a lot of Christians in our midst, we have a lot of no believers in our midst and we are also having a good number of Muslims that are joining us. The basic rule when you are in politics is often that the religious inclination of an individual is a private affair. If you have members that are Muslims and others are Christians, then you subject them to one particular God, I don’t think you are being fair. But concluding out of that and saying ‘this person does not believe in God’ is unacceptable,” said Dr Musumali.

“The other issue of getting funding from people with questionable sexual preferences, it sounds like he is saying I was trying to get money from homosexual groups. This is a lie and its malicious. I did not expect that from somebody like comrade Wynter Kabimba. I am even doubting if he really said that, but when somebody like you (News Diggers) interpret it like that, then I believe it. I am so shocked and I don’t understand why he can be bringing something like this in the public space. To the Zambian public that was listening to comrade Wynter Kabimba, that me I am power hungry, that I was bringing in people of questionable sexual orientation and the issue of Christianity, they must know that this has no basis. I would like to say that even if we may have semantic differences, we should have a lot of similarities because we believe in the same ideology. We should be holding hands now and saying since we have two socialist parties in Zambia, how can we work together?”