PF DEPUTY national chairperson Davies Chama says he has no doubt that Zambians will trust PF again in order for the party to continue providing leadership and developing the country.

And Chama says the party will miss Edgar Lungu because he is a great leader who did so much within a short period of time.

In an interview, Chama said he had no doubt that Zambians would trust the PF again and allow the party to continue providing leadership and developing the country.

“Equally former president Edgar Chagwa Lungu, he contested in Chawama at one time, he could not make it. But again he contested, he won and later he contested as president and he won. So do not rule out a person. The fact that a person has lost an election the first time, he could not become a great leader, I do not buy into that notion. This issue of apportioning blame because we have lost an election because a bunch of individuals are responsible for our loss is not correct. For me, I do not buy into that reasoning. I think we need to refocus, rebrand and make sure that we go back to the drawing board and to convince the Zambian people that we are the party of choice. I have no doubt that the people of Zambia will entrust their trust back into PF to make sure that we continue to provide leadership and to continue developing this country,” he said.

And Chama said the party would miss Lungu’s selfless leadership.

“The former president Dr Edgar Chagwa Lungu actually already informed the Central Committee. We have had two Central Committee meetings from the time of having elections on the 12th August. So he already informed the Central Committee about his intention to step aside and let other leaders emerge in the party. Yes, indeed we will miss him; he was a great leader and he is still a great leader for our party. He has done so much within a short period of time. He has transformed and developed. We shall sincerely miss him for his selfless contribution and for the transformation of this country. Whilst we shall miss him, you know when we lost our founding president of our party, it was not easy but he took it upon himself to make sure that the party was unified. The party went from strength to strength and we won two elections in 2015 and 2016,” Chama said.

He said PF had a lot of leaders capable of taking over from Lungu and ensure that the party grows from strength to strength.

“PF has a lot of reserve of leadership I believe. And the former president himself if I may quote his own words, during the Central Committee meeting he said ‘whilst I will step aside, I am pretty sure that many more leaders will make a great contribution’. Just like he had made and Michael Sata made, we will emerge and make sure that the party grows from strength to strength. So I am pretty sure that we have a lot of leaders who will take up the mantle from where the former president will leave the party in terms of leadership,” he said.

Asked if he was interested in succeeding Lungu, Chama said leadership came from God.

“You know, leadership comes from God and it is God who chooses and identifies people who can lead. So it is very difficult for me to answer that question. You know we have had great leaders to fit in the shoes of late president Sata and now Edgar Lungu and it is not an easy task. But it is quite humbling that you can even mention that it may be possible for me to take up the mantle of leadership for our party and later for our country. So that can be my answer. It is a philosophy,” he said.

And Chama said there was no need to apportion blame on anyone for PF’s loss.

“Let me tell you that every person is great and every person can make a contribution to make sure that the party is transformed. So do not underestimate any person. Many people have been chosen, they have lost elections and later on they come back to emerge winners. So in my view, we do not underestimate any person for that matter. For me, not one person or individual contributed to the loss of the party. There are many factors that we can tabulate that may be contributed to where the people were misled,” said Chama.

“People basically were just misled or they were lied to or deceived. It is not that we do not have leaders or we did not select leaders correctly. We did our level best to make sure that we chose leaders that we felt can win us elections. I can tell you that there are many people who have contested elections they lost but later on won. One typical example is president Sata, he lost elections but did it mean that he could not win us elections later? No. He lost elections three times but later on, he won us big elections and we formed government.”