I can’t reconcile with the PF and if their strategy is to squeeze my business until I surrender and rejoin them, they are wasting time because it will never work, says NDC president Chishimba Kambwili.

And Kambwili says even if the PF got him back, the ruling party would still stand no chance of winning the 2021 general elections because his membership cannot make the party formidable.

The former chief government spokesperson was reacting to a story published in The Mast newspaper, Sunday, in which Geoffrey Bwalya Mwamba (GBM) was quoted saying PF was contemplating a roundtable meeting with Kambwili with a view to getting him bak to the ruling party.

The newspaper further reported that in reaction to GBM’s assignment of getting him back, Kambwili said “we will cross the bridge when we get there”

Asked by News Diggers to clarify his statement, and if he had developed the willingness to rejoin PF, the NDC leader said he was misunderstood, and his position against the ruling party had not changed.

He stressed that PF could not become formidable by the joining in of new members but by doing the right things.

“You know how I’ve been treated by PF, I’ve been treated very badly. I am in court all the time, they have destroyed my businesses, how can you reconcile with such people, that have destroyed your business completely, they are taking you to court for unreasonable charges, how do you reconcile with such people? Because I have said and I want to say it again, you see, he who comes to equity must come with clean hands. You are saying you want to reconcile with somebody but you continue doing atrocities against him, how do you reconcile with such people? Because for me, if squeezing me is the way for taking me to PF, it will never happen. I have suffered for too long, I have endured and I am now used. People cannot use squeezing other people out of business, taking them to court, as a way for them to go and surrender and say ‘I want to go to PF because na chula (I have suffered)’, I am not that type of a person. So it is difficult to reconcile with people that are fixing you, it is very difficult,” Kambwili lamented.

“And by the way, PF doesn’t only need old members to come back to the PF and that’s when they will be formidable. PF will only be formidable if they start doing the right thing, there have to be a lot of fundamental changes in PF in order for them to be attractive, it is not about asking Chishimba Kambwili to join, it is the fundamentals, how are they looking after the people? Surely, yesterday I went to buy electricity, for K1,000, I used to get 896 units but yesterday, for K1,000, I got four hundred and seventy something, where are we going? Those are issues that need to change in order for the people to appreciate PF. It can’t be business as usual and you say ‘we are planning to bring Chishimba Kambwili’, even if you bring Chishimba Kambwili, without changing the fundamentals, without properly looking after the people, you stand no chance. So in a nutshell, I have never been approached by PF and I am still the president of the National Democratic Congress, and I will continue as such, this is what I have said consistently.”

Kambwili charged that the PF was sponsoring the propaganda that he was rejoining the ruling party in order to destabilise the NDC.

“How many times have you heard about those stories? And why should the one from GBM should be special? We have been hearing stories that PF wants Kambwili back for the past two years, have I been to PF? Have I gone to PF? So I am not going to be wasting time to be answering to propaganda because those people what they want to do is to send confusion in the NDC camp but they will not destroy NDC and the best they can do is to stop that propaganda because it will not help them. We have heard these propaganda rumours, if someone wants to join another political party, then they go on a podium and say ‘I have resigned and I have joined’. Why should somebody else speak on their behalf? If I were to join PF, it’s me to announce that I am joining PF. I am not PF and I am not joining PF. If they are discussing on their own there, wanting to reconcile with me, what does that have to do with me? They have not discussed with me, nobody has approached me,” he said.

“So it is just propaganda, don’t even pay attention to it. If GBM wants me, why should he go to the press to begin with? He knows where I live, he knows my phone number, why should I hear it from the newspaper that they want me? You can even see that it is just propaganda. Have you ever seen reconciliation where you go to the newspaper and say ‘I want to reconcile with you’, when you know the person? Go and speak to the person. Immediately you hear people going to the newspaper, it is just propaganda, wanting to create an impression that is not there. In short, it is just propaganda and a rumour that must not be taken seriously, it must be discarded with the contempt which it deserves.”

Asked what he meant by saying “We will cross the bridge when we get there”, Kambwili said newspaper article did not correctly represent his position.

“I am shocked about that statement because when he (the reporter) asked me, ‘if PF approached you today that they want you to return to PF [would you go?]’, I said look, that’s a story for another day and we will cross the bridge when we get there because you know my answer. I have been dealing with you people and you know my stance on that issue’. Then he just goes and writes that, you know, reporters sometimes would want to bring in an issue so that it can prolong, you talk about it today, you talk about it again tomorrow and I am not interested in such things, I am busy mobilising my party. And like I said, nobody has approached me from PF that they want me and even if they approached me, it is up to me [to decide]. But I have not been approached, I have no intensions, so it is just propaganda,”said Kambwili.