ZDDM COURTS KAVINDELE FOR PRESIDENT
THE Zambia Direct Democracy Movement (ZDDM) says it is courting former vice president Enoch Kavindele as party president as part of its rebranding process. Speaking to the Daily Nation yesterday, ZDDM president Edwin Sakala said his party was leaving no stone unturned in its quest to contest the 2021. Mr Sakala said the decision to have Mr Kavindele lead the party was arrived at after wide consultations with the party membership and traditional leaders. He however admitted that during the first meeting the party had with him, he never gave a clear-cut answer over the prospects of taking over the leadership of the party. He however said signatures from party members and sympathisers were being collected across the country to plead with him to join ZDDM and eventually takeover. “We want to stand in the gap between PF and the UPND. We have approached and discussed with him over the prospect of him becoming our president but he is a bit hesitant but now we want to collect signatures. “We had a list of possible candidates that can lead us but our membership settled for him. We are going back the people to collect signatures. We need a minimum of 500 signatures which we will present to him. Of course he has not given us a straight forward answer,” Mr Sakala said. He said Mr Kavindele was a seasoned politician who had the mantra to turn around the fortunes of the party. “With him as our party leader, we will galvanize membership from UNIP, MMD and even PF. We have received a lot of support and we want him to come. If we form Government, we will make federalism reforms which will ensure that each province governs itself. “We want to have a people’s assembly where all the 284 chiefdoms should have representatives. What we are fighting against is a situation where one tribe dominates Parliament because right now, we have the struggle between the Bembas and the Tongas. We don’t want that,” he said.