PF member of Central Committee Elizabeth Phiri says it is healthy that former ruling party members are fighting amongst themselves without anyone defecting to any other party.

And Phiri says the number of presidential hopefuls in the party shows that PF is still attractive.

In an interview, Phiri said “fighting within the house and that is healthy enough”.

“You can tell that the party is finishing by mass defections of going to other political parties. I think you can agree with me that you have not seen mass defections and that is a sign that people still believe in PF. If there were mass defections, just like we used to experience when we were in power, we could see that when MMD lost to us, we were receiving mass defectors. That was a sign that MMD is finishing. We are fighting yes, actually we are not fighting, as the children of one house, we might be exchanging bitter words or words that would discourage others. But are we gone? The answer is no. We are not gone, we are fighting within the house and that is healthy enough,” Phiri said.

“What we are looking at is when does this dust settle and when this dust settles, what next? We would tell where PF is going after the convention. I can assure you PF is PF and we are still there.”

And Phiri said the number of presidential hopefuls showed that PF was still attractive.

“We are a family and I pray that people should know that everyone is in a confused state. The loss was like a shock to us especially when we thought we have given the people the development that they yearned for. You know, there is no political party that has brought so much infrastructure like PF and we are yet to see whether we are going to be beaten by the current government in terms of infrastructure. Because of that, we have a number of presidential hopefuls that have come up. That shows that the party is still attractive,” Phiri said

“Some of the quarrels that we are hearing are more of family than political. So when people are saying this and that and when comments are coming from the public, partially I can say yes it is not right that there has been some utterances that would discourage the few. But what I can just tell the people is that PF is still intact. Whatever is going on is just a phase. I think when there is dust, you cannot see far but when it settles you have a clear view. This is just an aftermath of the loss and people do not really know.”

She said having feuds did not mean the party was finished.

“Our people might seem to have some differences but that does not mean we are finished. When you look at the people that might be going to the media speaking, it is more of a family. The roots of some of the issues that people are quarreling about are deeper. They will reconcile at some point. I do not want to say much about some of the quarrels we are hearing because this is purely blood,” said Phiri.

“It has nothing to do with PF and it has more to do with the family. I know in the family circles, there will be elders who will guide the siblings that could be quarrelling. If you want to connect everybody who is now a subject, somehow somewhere they are relatives. It is either they are related through tribe or with blood. So for Elizabeth to start commenting, they might turn against me when they reconcile and start fighting me. This is purely a family issue.”