MMD president Nevers Mumba says alliances in Zambia fail to work because they are about power sharing and there is also lack of honesty among members.

Speaking when he appeared on Crown TV’s Truth Be Told program, Mumba said alliances became very vulnerable if they were about power

“If it is all about power, it becomes very vulnerable that is why you can go back to a long time ago you can hardly point out an alliance in this country that has worked, it is because those alliances it is all about power, how do you outwit your friend to say ‘okay guys when we get into government, we will give you so many positions’ and then when you get into government you don’t even share those positions, they don’t give them to you, everything is a lie, this lack of honesty that makes alliances very difficult. But it does not take away what needs to be done for an alliance to stick. You have to have a programme to which you both agree that at the end of 10 years, we want to see a Zambia that is something like that,” Mumba said.

“And I think that it is not a difficult thing to do. But you have described it well that a lot of alliances in this country are alliances based on power sharing; they don’t even think about Zambians when they are talking about power sharing. The results of such kinds of alliances have always been failure of those alliances either before the elections, or during the elections or after the elections. So I think it is important for us to strengthen alliances and put flesh to them that can hold them together for a long period of time.”

He said alliances should be based on finding ways in which national matters could be resolved.

“Alliances are not based on best friends coming together; alliances are based on finding ways in which you could resolve a certain national matter. In this case, we must resolve the issue of the poverty levels in this country, we must resolve the issue of high levels of corruption, we must resolve the issue of jobs in this country and we must resolve the issue of morality and integrity so that Zambia can become a pride not only on the African continent but around the world. It has taken me to time to learn that God has sent me as sheep amongst wolves. You can’t now say I will be moving with the sheep, forget the wolves, I have come to learn one saying that in politics or life in general, never say never,” he said.

“The reason why that is important is that there would be a party that is really perceived to be bad because of something that they have done. Look at MMD, some people would say MMD did this and that so we can’t go into an alliance with them but MMD has a lot of good people. MMD has people that mean well, UPND has people that mean well, PF also has people that mean well so it is a question of trying to, for that moment, to try and find how can you galvanise the goodness that is there.”

Mumba said any decision for MMD to join a specific alliance would be based on the National Executive Committee’s resolution.

“At the moment you don’t put a party on television and say this one I will never work with it. Because first of all, MMD is an institution that is governed by the National Executive Committee, not Nevers Mumba. I can’t sit here and say I can’t work with PF or I can’t work with UPND, I can’t work with NDC. It is not for me to say that because that is a decision and a preserve of NEC. And sometimes the NEC can even make a decision [which] the chairman does not agree with but the chairman is one vote so he has to go with the majority and that is where we are at the moment,” he said.

When asked if he had a soft spot for PF because they helped him during the DRC fracas, Mumba said he wasn’t aware government helped.

“I don’t know what this government did to get me out, I have not sat with this government ever since I came out of Congo so I don’t know what they did. What I do know is that the government of Congo, the President of Congo played a major role in getting me out. That information I have because he intervened himself because we know each other well. So he could not believe the story that he was told, they told him all this that Nevers has done this but he had to weigh that against my person, can pastor Mumba do that? He did his investigations and he was convinced that there is nothing on my name, they were people trying to frame me. Whether PF helped or not, I don’t have anything on records to say about that. Except that I expect that when a former vice-president is implicated in a foreign land it is the obligation of the government to do something about it,” he said.

“So it’s possible that they have done something but I have not sat with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, I have not sat with the President to find out if there was anything that was done so the assertion that I am trying to bend there because they helped me does not arise. So please let them know that the decision that will be made if it were to come to that to decide on alliance, it will be made outside anything that people are thinking that Nevers has a relationship with the PF. Because that is not true, I don’t think it will come into play in any case even if that had happened, did every member of the NEC get help in Congo? So even that doesn’t make sense I can assure the Zambian people that any decision made by our NEC will be based on actual facts and consensus that will be reached during that time.”

Meanwhile, Mumba said one of the greatest dangers which Zambia faced was the disregard for quality leadership.

“The greatest danger that Zambia and Africa faces is the disregard for the quality of leadership. We do not place a premium on the leadership. In Africa, we have adopted this democracy and worked like a vacuum cleaner. Anybody who is there can win an election. It doesn’t matter whether they have any values, if they drink too much beer and they buy beer for everybody in the nightclub then they are the most popular. You vote for those people the country remains the way African countries have remained. And Zambia must be in the lead to take the move upwards. That is why I am not in total disagreement with this judgement by the Constitutional Court on the grade 12 because it is an effort to try to raise the bar of leadership,” said Mumba.