The newly unveiled Labour Party, led by Friday Jumbe, faces its first hurdle following reports that another political party with a similar name had already been registered in 1997.

Documents in our possession indicate that the office of the Registrar of Parties had on 29 May, 1997 registered Labour Party and a certificate of registration number PPR 14 was issued.

This has been confirmed by the parties Publicity Secretary Lovemore Napwiyo

But speaking to media, Jumbe said at the time they were registering the party, there were no indications that a party with a similar name already existed.

“When we did the initial search my colleagues didn’t see it (Labour Party) because there are so many political parties, so they didn’t know that it existed. But when we checked later on we discovered that the party does exist,” said Jumbe.

He says in view of the development, they have resorted to changing their name from labour party to the new labour party.

Jumbe said: “Ours is New Labour Party; that was the co-agenda that we were supposed to inform the public when we were launching the party. But in essence we are Labour Party anyway, because the other party is not active anyway. They have been there since 1997 but no one knew about it so what are they doing anayway? But we don’t want to quarrel with them so we have changed to New Labour Party.”

Jumbe and other disgruntled members of the forming ruling United Democratic Front (UDF) formed a new party after being frustrated by the operations of the UDF.