Northern Province Minister Lazarus Chungu says he cannot comment on the ultimatum which PF secretary general Davies Mwila gave him to resign within 24 hours as the ruling party’s Northern Province chairperson because he has not received such communication.

And National Democratic Congress (NDC) president Chishimba Kambwili says Mwila is playing double standards by asking Chungu to resign when the PF boss lost an election to an independent candidate.

On Friday, Mwila asked Chungu, who is also Lupososhi PF member of parliament, to resign, saying it was unacceptable that the opposition could grab a ward seat in his own bedroom.

When contacted for a comment, Chungu said he had not received such information.

“I haven’t received that information so I cannot make any comments. So no comment from me please, understand that,” said Chungu.

And in a separate interview, Kambwili said by Mwila’s standards, he was also expected to resign as party secretary general.

“Davies Mwila lost elections in Chipili, did anyone ask him to resign as member of the central committee? Nobody asked him. In any case, he was even promoted as Secretary General so why does he want others fired for losing elections? What is good for the goose should be gander. So those are just double standards and Mwila should be very ashamed that he’s the one tell Lazarus to think about resigning. Let him also resign as secretary general for having lost the same elections,” Kambwili said.

He said PF’s loss in Lupososhi should be blamed on the entire party.

“That is a sign of failed leadership, are you telling me that the person who made PF lose is the Provincial Minister? Losing an election is a collective thing and a reasonable leader and party, what they would do is to carry out a postmortem and know why they lost the election. You cannot blame one person for the loss, Lazarus Chungu is not the only PF in Lupososhi, that constituency has got members. How are these members being looked after? How are the people of Lupososhi being looked after? What is the price of maize? What is the price of mealie meal? What is the cost of electricity? What is the cost of living? There are a lot of issues that contributed that loss and when we are saying that PF is not well administered right from the secretariat, we mean just this!” Kambwili said.

Kambwili insisted that Mwila was running away from responsibility.

“First and for more, the secretary general is expected to be the first one to arrive in a place where there is an election, the job of a secretary general, when they just declare an election, the secretary general has to go there to go and assess, listen to what the people are saying and when the elections have reached a climax, he needs to go there and do the campaign. Not going there with the President for one day and come back saying ‘we went for the campaign’. So to me that’s just clear, it’s not about Lazarus Chungu as MP or as Provincial Minister, it is about the entire leadership of PF starting from the secretary general going down,” said Kambwili.

“So the person who should have been fired or asked to resign is the secretary general and not Lazarus Chungu. Mwila has shown traits of poor leadership, so my advice to them is, leave Lazarus Chungu, don’t embarrass him. In any case he went for the campaigns, he did his best. But what did Mwila contribute? What did he do in that campaign? All they want is when the President is going there, that’s when they tag along and say ‘we went for the campaign’. When campaigns start a secretary general is supposed to be in an area even for one week or two, that’s what a good secretary general does. This is an internal matter of PF but I think by and large, if the ruling party cannot control the way they run things, then it affects the way they run the country and that’s why I am forced to make a comment.”