A brewing intra-party dispute among factions of the ruling Patriotic Front (PF) party has sent some officials into hiding while others are considering resigning from the party.
The latest victim of the disunity is Deputy Minister of Defence Davies Mwila, who today announced that he has resigned his position with the PF government with immediate effect.
Resignations from ministerial positions are exceedingly rare, and usually only occur during moments of significant turmoil.
Mwila who is also a Member of Parliament representing the Chipili District and serves PF Chairperson for Labour, has thrown in the towel for yet to be known reasons.
The Patriotic Front party is undergoing a turbulent time that has seen the party split into two factions led by Defence Minister Geoffrey Mwamba and Justice Minister Wynter Kabimba.
According to sources close to the party, Kabimba has provoked the anger of hundreds of diehard youth cadres for having pursued a “blacklist” of “undisciplined” constituency officials who in recent weeks had sided behind his rival Minister of Defence Geoffrey Bwayla Mwamba (GBM). In response to his effort to systematically purge these officials from the party, a group of cadres prevented Kabimba from entering his office on 12 September, leading to rumours of Kabimba’s suspension from the party.
Mr. Kabimba hastily scheduled a press conference to address this situation at 10AM today, however the event was cancelled at the last minute as Kabimba cited “a family emergency” of unknown details.
Other sources, however, claim that Kabimba had discussed his most recent moves with President Michael Sata, and may in fact succeed in getting his rival GBM removed from his ministerial position.
As President Sata departs for a week in New York to attend the U.N. General Assembly, these disputes among rival PF factions threaten to escalate out of control, one source speculated.
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