National Democratic Congress (NDC) secretary general Mwenya Musenge says he decided not to join his party on the campaign trail for the April 11, Roan parliamentary by-election to avoid confrontation with party consultant Chishimba Kambwili.

In an interview, Musenge told News Diggers! that he decided to stay away from the campaigns so that his party could campaign peacefully.

At one of the campaign rallies in Roan, Kambwili alleged that Musenge had shunned campaigning for his party because he had been paid by the PF.

But Musenge, however, rubbished Kambwili’s claim.

“It is triviality of reasoning by whoever makes such sentiments because you should not make allegations that you can’t prove before the courts of law. But we are all aware how Chishimba Kambwili is; he is someone who likes saying things that he can’t even prove! So, you don’t even waste much time to respond to that, you allow people to see for themselves and decide who the more reasonable person among those is,” Musenge said.

“I am sure you are aware what has been transpiring in our party and in trying to harmonise and calm down, one has to take the initiative. So, I thought it’s better that I remain quiet until after the elections, that’s when we can sit and look at our issues. So, for now, I would rather allow a few of our colleagues who are in Luanshya to focus on the by-election there. Because we have an innocent person standing in the by-election and I wouldn’t want our issues to affect his campaigns.”

Musenge said he wished the NDC victory in the by-election, hence decided to stay away rather than potentially creating confusion.

“Winning in Roan would be an added advantage for our party, and that’s why I said we should allow our people to campaign without problems because of the differences that I have had with my colleague, Kambwili. You need to look at creating a conducive environment for the country; if I had gone into Roan, we could have created confusion among ourselves. I opted to stay away to create a conducive atmosphere for the campaigns so that we can resolve the differences after the by-elections,” Musenge said.

And he said it was his prayer that the working alliance between NDC and the UPND in Roan succeeds.

He added that the two parties worked well together in Kafue, but only lost because the ruling party had a lot of resources at its disposal.

“It is my prayer that it succeeds. As you saw in Kafue, that Alliance brought so many people together and the vote that was amassed by the opposition was really encouraging. They lost, but the difference was very minimal, you are competing with a party that is in government, which has everything at its disposal; they are able to splash money and whatever they can. It is not easy at all. And you are working with an opposition political party that is entirely depending on the little resources that you are able to garner just amongst yourselves,” said Musenge.

“Now, a party in government gets a lot of support even from the business community, simply because they know they may get some favours in future. But an opposition political party, there is nothing at all. So, for the results they got in Kafue are very encouraging and just shows that the people are destined for change in 2021.”