Southern Province Minister Elijah J. Muchima has refuted media reports that he had a hand in the mayoral elections for Livingstone City. He said he did not want to be dragged in to the Livingstone councilors politics as his Office was just an advisory when it comes to MMD party issues at local level.
He said he merely facilitated a caucus meeting where strategic resolution resolutions was reached to float one candidate for Mayor and another for deputy, the councilors themselves decided on Mr. Musesa and councilor Jere respectively. Councilor Musonda was bitter because he wanted to floated as the candidate but then the primary elections conducted amongst MMD councilors reviewed that the preferred candidate was Mr. Musesa.
He said for Mr. Musonda to have gone ahead and filed in the nominations as Mayoral was a betrayal of the party because he necessitated the split of vote within MMD and subsequent loss of elections to the opposition UPND a council that MMD controls in terms of numbers.
