[By Edwin Mbulo in Mazabuka]
EVERY society has a lunatic, the likes of Cornelius Mweetwa is one, says Southern Province PF chairperson Lawrence Evans.
Mweetwa on Tuesday, after attending a habeas corpus hearing in Mazabuka over the detention of Ackson Sejani and three others, threatened to seek the Constitutional Court’s intervention blocking any PF member from filing in his or her nominations for the August Presidential and General Elections charging that the ruling party did not hold an elective convention
The hearing was also attended by Gary Nkombo, Lusaka Province UPND chairperson Obvious Mwaliteta and Stephen Katuka.
“We have witnessed with growing concern and the nation was treated to drama over what looked like a convention of the PF and ended up into a hoax because there were no elections held, there were no ballot papers,” he said. “The Republican Constitution requires that a political party holds an elective convention,” he said. “We are giving the PF 48 hours to reconvene a convention so that they fulfill requirements of the law failure to which we will take this matter to the Constitutional Court to block any PF member to file in nominations in an election.”
Mweetwa alleged that there was a rebellion in the PF among old members over the adoption of Charles Kakoma who recently joined the ruling party.
But reacting to Mweetwa, Evans said the PF was not under the UPND for it to adhere to Mweetwa’s conditions.
“In every society there is a lunatic, the likes of Cornelius Mweetwa is just a lunatic. The fact that we held a very successful general conference makes them…their (UPND) leader has never been democratic to afford to hold a general conference like we did. It is just malice aimed at tarnishing our names,” he said. “We, in the PF, have been always holding a general conference every fifth year. Mweetwa’s statement is based on his own personal points and it is baseless. He wants to use it to gain points for him to be readopted for the Choma Central parliamentary seat,” said Evans. “For him to say he is giving us 24 hours does not help because we are not under the UPND. Our leader as PF, President Edgar Lungu, has powers to choose who he wants to work with in the national central committee, Mweetwa ni chipuba chamuntu chabe (Mweetwa is just a fool).”