PF DEPUTY national chairperson Davies Chama says the unruly behaviour portrayed by some former ruling party cadres during the Michael Sata’s memorial service was unacceptable.

There was confusion during the memorial service when some PF cadres arrived at the solemn event bearing “Kambwili 2026” banners while shouting “Imbwili”.

The youths argued with some ushers who asked them to lower the banners as it was disrespectful.

It was only when their preferred PF successor, Kambwili, addressed them that they obliged.

But in an interview, Chama questioned the rebranding strategy when it appeared everything was still the same.

“Unfortunately, people who are doing that don’t even realize the damage they are doing to their own party. I heard someone saying ‘we are suffering’. Yes, you will continue suffering because of that kind of behaviour. It is unfortunate that things continue to happen in our party. I think we should disregard this bad behaviour that sometimes even contributed to our loss and these same characters want to continue behaving the same way which Zambians don’t like. I don’t know what strategy in terms of rebranding. They are talking about rebranding, but rebranding without changing your ways of doing things? That is unacceptable,” he said.

Chama said PF had a lot of intelligent young men capable of providing leadership and that it was not possible for one person to change things for PF.

“PF is a very big organisation. It can live beyond Mr Chama, it can live beyond Mr Lubinda, it can live beyond our former president Edgar Lungu, it has lived beyond president Sata. There is a lot of young generation coming up, brilliant, intelligent young men coming up and they can provide leadership. So why believe in one individual and think that this individual can change things for PF? There are a lot of people who can change things for PF,” he said.

“We have a lot of reservoir of leadership in the party and this thing of hero worshiping one individual, I think this is where it is returning development of Africa because we deposit everything in one person. It is not possible for one person to change the country, it is not possible. So what happened is very very unfortunate, it is unacceptable and it cannot be supported by the leadership and people who mean well.”

Chama said it was unfortunate that some people decided to use the solemn occasion to campaign, further wondering why people were impatient to become what they wanted to become.

“That is very unfortunate and any well meaning leader must be able to condemn that unruly behaviour. That is a very solemn occasion when we are remembering our late president and people want to start campaigning. I don’t know why people are so impatient to become what they want to become. Why use a solemn occasion to campaign? Where you are even threatening that without such and such a person then there will be no PF? PF has existed without those people they were mentioning,” he said.

“You cannot behave like there is a semi god somewhere, without that person, without Mr Chama then PF will be no more. What type of behaviour is that? That is very, very unacceptable and I think some people who do such things don’t even think rationally. I’m sorry to say this. They are trying to promote certain individuals and without that individual and because that individual can even, God forbid, can collapse and die, so what happens?”

Meanwhile, Chama said Sata must be proud of PF because they had done what he visualized Zambia to be.

“Wherever he is, he has been watching us and what we have achieved in the last 10 years. He should be proud of what we have achieved in terms of the transformation of this country. We laid a necessary foundation for economic transformation. I think we have done what he visualized Zambia to be and moving forward so that Zambia becomes a transformed and developed country,” said Chama.

“I’m pretty sure he is proud. Of course notwithstanding the number of challenges that we faced during this journey of the transformation and there has been a bit of some dissatisfaction along the way. But I think he is proud we managed to do what he should have visualized to have achieved during his reign as President.”