Movement for Multi-party Democracy president Nevers Mumba says there is nothing strange about Davies Mwila proclaiming himself third highest in the government hierarchy because that is exactly what PF promised before being elected.

Mumba, who is a former republican vice-president, explained to News Diggers! in an interview at his Kabulonga residence, Thursday, that wrong as the current PF governance structure was, they had not hidden it from the people before forming government.

Mumba regretted that Zambians were so preoccupied with making sure that the MMD, under former republican president Rupiah Banda, was kicked out of power at the expense of scrutinizing the PF manifesto and understanding what it stood for.

“The government has it’s own constitution called the national constitution. Political parties also have their party constitutions and in addition to their constitutions, they also have a manifesto. A manifesto is what they sell to the Zambian people prior to an election that once we take over power, this is how we are going to run government within the supreme law of the land which is the constitution. Zambians cannot complain now about PF because this what PF promised them and they voted for it regardless…I don’t agree with how PF does things when the President is out of the country where they make the Secretary General to act as president. But this comes from the communist world, that’s how it is structured in their system. Even in Zambia we tried it (It was Kenneth Kaunda, Vice President and then Secretary General of the Party Mr Grey Zulu). This is the same thing that PF is doing, it’s the socialist/communist way of governing,” Mumba explained.

Mumba said it was not in order that the PF Secretary General was the boss of all cabinet ministers but at the same time, insisted that it was not wrong because they promised it would be like that.

“The ministers of PF report to the Secretary General. He’s their boss unfortunately, which is a big anomaly in my view. But they told you before they formed government that that’s how they are going to govern. So there you have it and you will have to live with it as long as PF is in power. Even when they go to meetings on their protocol list they say; ‘His Excellency the President, Her Honour the Vice-President, The Secretary General of the Patriotic Front’ and then they go to everybody else. But that’s what they promised you, Mr Sata told you before and now they are exercising it knowing what they were going to. So yes PF is governing, of course when you vote in a party it becomes a governing party and their policies are the ones that the whole country follows. So there is nothing wrong with what they have done,” Mumba said.

“They have just told you that this is who we are and you vote for them then they begin to govern according to how they want to govern. So this is really what it is. And as it is, if one minister today disobeyed Davies Mwila who is Secretary General of the Party, then he can just remove them from the party and once a minister is removed from the party then he automatically stops being minister. So yes he holds the party, that’s the communist way of governance.”

Meanwhile, Mumba said there was need for change in the way politics were practiced in Zambia.

“MMD departed from this kind of governance system because we thought that democracy does not need it, democracy means that yes a political party governs, they go to a conference, come up with policies then they go to cabinet so that the government ministers now are the ones who implement what the party has given to them. But the PF wants their Secretary General to have his foot inside the governance system. To me, I think it’s wrong but they told you and so they are not doing anything crazy. This thing was so much in black and white but you [Zambians] did not just care, all what you wanted was to have Rupiah out of power. So in terms of the way PF is governing us, I can’t fault them. They are going the wrong way but they promised us this wrong way. That’s why we need to change the politics of this country because if we don’t do that then even of we get a nice guy to become President, it will not be better,” said Mumba.