SACCORD has welcomed efforts by the church to reconcile the waring factions in the former ruling party, the MMD and has called on all well meaning Zambians to support the efforts as MMD is an important part of the country’s democracy.
SACCORD Executive Director Boniface Cheembe says the importance of the MMD can not be understated as it is a very important party to Zambia’s democracy and multi-partism.
Mr Cheembe said it is the hope of all well meaning Zambians to see the MMD survive its current challenges and continue being relevant to the country’s politics with the hope of returning to power one day.
“As SACCORD we welcome the efforts by the church to reconcile the different factions in the former ruling party, the MMD. We believe that the former ruling party is a very important party to Zambia. It is the founding member of our democracy. Also owing to the fact that it has had experience in government and now in opposition.
The hope of Zambians is that five years after living office the party ought to remain relevant. It needs to put itself in a position to form government one day with the support of Zambians,” he said.
He said the wrangles are not health for the party and that the wrangles should be handled carefully away from the public. He said if handled carelessly whoever emerges victor may not have a party to run.
“The factions are not health and if they not handled carefully by the leadership they may end up having the MMD becoming irrelevant to Zambia’s democracy and if the infighting and the wrangles are not handled carefully behind closed doors away from the public whoever wins may not have a party to run at the end of the day,” he said.
He also said if the former ruling party needed more stakeholders to help sort out their wrangles the party should not hesitate to call others to came on board.
“We believe that the efforts that seek to bring the various factions together to a round table to discuss on an amicable solution that ensures that the party remains intact and remain relevance ought to be welcomed and supported. It is also hoped that should MMD need any other stakeholders to come on board and help them they should feel free because there is no Zambian who would like to see the party lose relevance or go into oblivion,” he said.
We need UNIP & MMD if our democracy is to make sense. We can’t have a situation where whoever wants to be president has to form a new party. Respect for institutions should become our hallmark. Nevers Mumba & most of our current crop of politicians think they are bigger than the institutions they lead. They use their constitutions as toilet paper & believe its either them or the whole institution dies.