However the infusion of former PF top brass such as Hichilema's running mate Geoffrey Bwalya Mwamba Miles Sampa Scott Sylvia Masebo and former televangelist and Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) President Nevers Mumba has increased Hichilema's appeal to the grassroots especially in the influential Bemba-speaking region...
However Lungu was able to profit from the total collapse of the vote for the Movement for Multi-party Democracy after former President Rupiah Banda first tried to supplant Nevers Mumba as the party's candidate and then when he failed threw his weight behind the PF...
He was duly chosen by the MMD which he had created and funded as its candidate for the presidency to the exclusion and anger of Nevers Mumba MMD leader ever since Banda now 77 stepped down as party president in 2012...
MMD leader Nevers Mumba is still disputing the party's selection of former President Banda as its candidate but he is extremely unlikely to succeed...
Nevers Sekwila Mumba Banda's successor as party leader also insists he will be the MMD's candidate...
After losing the election to Sata in 2011 he did not imagine he would have another chance so soon and therefore allowed Nevers Mumba to take over the leadership of the Movement for Multiparty Democracy...
The evangelical cleric and leader of the Movement for Multiparty Democracy Nevers Mumba is struggling amid strong criticism from senior members of his own party...
Some of his key political allies left the MMD for the UPND while maintaining close links with him at the expense of the current MMD leader former Vice-President and television evangelist Nevers Mumba (AC Vol 45 No 20 Undiplomatic row)...
The MMD has wilted under the onslaught and its new leader Nevers Mumba does not possess the ammunition for a counter-attack...
He is also from a small ethnic minority and not being a Bemba-speaker could cause him to suffer politically especially at the hands of the Movement for Multiparty Democracy’s Nevers Mumba...
