Africa-Press – Zambia. PF senior member Mwimba Malama has urged the UPND to desist from making statements about handing over power to themselves, saying it is the same statement that cost the PF power in 2021.
On Friday, Vice-President Mutale Nalumango said the UPND government would hand over power to themselves after the 2026 general elections. She added that PF MPs would no longer be thieves once they joined UPND.
But commenting on the matter in an interview, Saturday, Malama, who is former second deputy speaker of the National Assembly, said late former president Edgar Lungu once made a similar statement without realising that people were not happy with some of the things that were happening at the time.
“Maybe there are so many things that the Vice-President looked at when she issued that statement, maybe she looked at the disorganisation of the opposition and she had confidence to say that because I took that statement as a normal statement even when it was issued by president Lungu because who would say I would lose elections? So it has come in the same vein through the Vice-President but people need to know that at the end of the day people decide who carried the day. So a person can say that but at the end of the day people decide, the results may be different or the same. Maybe the Vice-President looked at the disorganisation of the opposition and concluded that we are very safe,” Malama said
“Just like president Lungu did, he looked at the infrastructure and concluded that people were happy. He said, ‘I’m going to hand over power to myself,’ but not knowing that people were injured in some other areas like cadreism which came out strongly that it cost PF because people were not happy, they made PF lose power. So she might not know how many people have been injured and she’s also looking at the number of things that they may have done. So she finds it easy to say that we are going to hand over power to ourselves. But that’s a statement which was condemned, and that statement must be avoided going forward because we know what it has brought and how people look at that. At the end of the day it’s people who decide, those in government don’t decide. We should be very respectful to the Zambian people”.
He, however, said it was just a political statement meant to tease the opposition.
“So for me it’s just a political statement where you tease the opposition, that’s how I take it. It has nothing to do with reality. It could be true that they will hand over power to themselves if the opposition are not organised, and at the same time it could be a wrong statement which would join a statement which was issued by the late former president Lungu, when he said he will hand over power to himself,” Malama said.
And commenting on the statement that PF members joining UPND have ceased to be thieves, Malama said it was a demeaning statement for those joining the ruling party.
“The issue is, were they thieves first of all? For her to issue that statement, unless she is convinced that where they are coming from they were thieves, now that they have joined this party they will no longer be thieves. That’s if they have put measures to ensure that no one is stealing in UPND. So the question to ask is, don’t we have corrupt people in UPND? Don’t we have people stealing in UPND? If we don’t have, then it’s true, when they go there they will fail to steal, that’s if they were thieves. But that’s a very demeaning statement coming from the Vice-President and very embarrassing. It’s like where they are coming from they were thieves, that’s what the statement means. Maybe she meant that even if someone was a thief, when you come to UPND we have put measures in place that bar any person from being corrupt or from being a thief,” said Malama.
“And you know that anyone in government can be labelled as a thief depending on the government of the day. And especially when people occupy these offices, there are a lot of things that they do unintentionally but for the country, not knowing that what they are doing is wrong. So when you leave office it’s very easy to find a case to give you by the current government. So the issue of saying they were thieves where they came from, some of them are very innocent”.
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