PATRIOTIC Front (PF) party members have rejected the call by acting faction president Given Lubinda to hold a convention to elect a new leader of the former ruling party.
The members have argued that there was no need for the convention as the PF constitution gives the central committee powers to elect a presidential candidate.
The members accused Mr. Lubinda of being power hungry and wanting to impose himself as leader of the former ruling party, taking over from the late leader, Edgar Chagwa Lungu, who remains unburied two months after his death in a South African hospital. 
“Let Mr. Lubinda and his friends know that the PF will not go to the convention. We know that majority of the current central committee members are his friends who, if we go the convention, will just rubber stamp his election to be president of the party,” said one PF zealot, calling himself as Bakili Muluzi on social media.
The members further accused Mr. Lubinda and his friends of having clandestine meetings, plotting on how to take over the leadership of the party.
Mr. Lubinda’s supporters have already printed campaign banners, endorsing him as the rightful candidate to over the party’s leadership.
