By Scoop Reporter
LUMEZI Constituency 2021 independent parliamentary aspirant Munir Zulu has pledged K50, 000 to any candidate that the ruling Patriotic Front (PF) will adopt for the same seat.
Mr. Zulu said in 2016, he was among those that vied for adoption from PF to stand against former Lumezi Constituency MP Isaac Banda but that as usual, the party’s compromised structures in Eastern Province decided to adopt and impose the same person whom the people in Lumezi sought to do away with.
He said it was easy for him to go as an independent candidate but that since his interest to represent the people of Lumezi were not for my personal benefit but to offer leadership to communities, he decided that having two independent candidates in an election would give a leeway to the same evil the people of Lumezi sought to eradicate.
He said his team resolved to withdraw his candidature and rally behind a then fellow independent candidate, Pilila Jere, who eventually won the election in 2016.
“For me, I was happy we removed the obstacle of Isaac Banda. Come 2021, the very failures that influenced people of Lumezi to eradicate Isaac Banda still exist under the current MP Pilila Jere. Again, I have done all what a reasonable person could to ensure that we mobilise and galvanize the people in Lumezi so as to make a strong case for my possible adoption under the party I sympathize with.
“While I do not feel entitled to adoption, I am entitled to a right of being given a fair channel through which to present myself for possible adoption. For the past four years, a number of characters within the necessary party structures – whose names I won’t mention – have done everything evil to ensure that Munir Zulu doesn’t get any fair playground for adoption in PF,” Mr. Zulu said.
He said what they spent their time doing was to scheme ways to assassinate his ambitions and expectations of the people and that what these elements wanted was to impose Pilila Jere as MP, but that this time, under the PF banner.
“For me, I let the people of Lumezi down in 2016 and I regret because we wouldn’t be having the same perennial problems that we face in the constituency had I made a better choice of not backing a person who has clearly gone to Parliament for the sake of self-sustenance and to improve the welfare of her family.
“Pilila Jere is not PF and is an independent candidate who is conveniently working with PF over policy issues in Parliament. Real and genuine PF members who seek adoption in the party have been technically and practically knocked out by an evil system in the province that wants their preferred candidate selected by themselves regardless of what party edicts say.
“Again I repeat, whoever will be adopted from PF to stand against me in Lumezi Constituency will get K50, 000 from me. Let the games begin,” he said.
