WE have all said it’s President Edgar Lungu who will contest 2021 and for that to happen, we have to endorse him at the convention, so if anyone comes with another story, we should just laugh at such a person and say you are confused, says Minister of Transport and Communication Mutotwe Kafwaya.

Speaking in Mongu District, Western Province, where he was meeting PF party officials on Sunday, Kafwaya said he understood why people were supporting President Lungu because the Head of State had brought development to the people.

“When I hear that PF has won an election (Luola Local Government by-election) in Kalabo [district], in Liuwa Constituency, I now understand why people are voting for PF. I understand why people are supporting His Excellency the President because the President has brought development not only in one sector. Clearly we as a party, our role is simple. It’s just to explain these developments to the people and we show them that PF has been in power for close to 10 years, and in this period, this is when we have seen all this transformation,” he said.

Kafwaya urged the party structures in the province, in particular those who would be part of the delegates [at the convention] not be confused by anything or anyone.

“It’s interesting what President Lungu has done. I think we need to thank him. We need to be behind him at the national conference. I say so because we as a province here, we have no other person we can support. And we need to be reminding each other that at the national conference, all the MPs that I know have been saying ‘2021, it is President Edgar Lungu’. Where does that start from? It starts from us as the party endorsing him to be our candidate. So my encouragement to the party structures, in particular to those who will be part of the delegates, let’s not be confused by anything. Let’s not be confused by anyone. Our candidate, the Secretary General has spoken very clearly, members of central committees, ordinary MPs like myself, we have all spoken, the person we want to contest 2021 is President Edgar Lungu,” Kafwaya said.

“So if you hear anybody else other than President Lungu, somebody’s name being mentioned then you should know that these people are just confused because from the Secretary General down to ordinary MPs like myself, we have all said it is President Lungu who will contest 2021. So for that to happen we have to endorse him at the convention. So if anybody comes with another story we should just laugh at such a person and say you are confused, you don’t know what the party wants.”

And Kafwaya said, “The President himself has advised that party and government are two sides of the same coin. The coin being the President himself. When you turn this side he is government, when you turn this side he is a party because he is the head of the party and the head of government. So where government officials are, it’s as good as having party officials and that is why we must not fight. It should be in the interest of government officials to understand the party matters. It should be in the interest of the party to understand what government is doing because we are on different sides of the same coin. So we are just one.”