Africa-Press – Zambia. CORNELIUS Mweetwa says no one in the UPND top echelon will be President Hakainde Hichilema’s bootlicker. Mweetwa, the UPND spokesperson and recently elected Choma Central member of parliament, featured on ZNBC TV’s Sunday Interview.
“For those who have the opportunity to be around him (President Hichilema), I’m here to say we are not going to be bootlickers for HH. None of us is a bootlicker for HH; we are co-leaders with HH,” Mweetwa said. “We are there to support him [because] he is our leader. [We’ll] hold him accountable to help to lead this country to a better country that we want.”
He said unlike the PF pride of bragging that ‘we shall be in power until 2050,’ the UPND mandate in government would expire in 2026, with a possibility of renewal – based on performance.
The PF, with a haughty leadership and mostly stuck-up followers, suffered a humiliating defeat at presidential level, in the August 12 polls. Mweetwa said as a way of maintaining people’s support, the UPND government has low-hanging fruits by way of curtailing political violence and that such has already begun to happen.
“Everyone is free in Zambia now – free at last. [We’ll] end political cadreism – cadres storming ZNBC, ministries, cadres poking police officers,” he promised. “[We are also] ending political impunity – people speaking as though they were not elected. ‘We shall be here until 2050.’ [But] I’m here to say [that] UPND is here up to 2026, and dependent on how we behave, how we deliver [and] how we use this mandate, the people of Zambia have the right to remove us in 2026. So, what we shall do depends on the will of the people to decide to give us another mandate.”
Mweetwa added that the presidency of Hichilema is a departure point, from the rooted confusion that headlined Zambia under PF regime. “You can see the freedom which is reigning in the country. You can put on PF, UPND regalia and go anywhere. A radio station now can be able to interview anyone. No one is coming to shutdown…No DC (district commissioner) is going to come and say ‘what are you doing?’” Mweetwa explained. He noted that those who were coming to serve with President Hichilema must be leaders and not bootlickers.
“And leaders will know that our leader has to be helped by making the right choices and decisions, in order that his legacy should be enduring on the promises he made to the people of this country – the basis upon which the people gave him a landmark vote,” Mweetwa said. “I’m here to commit, as spokesperson of the UPND, [that] the media will have their space. We do recognise that the media is the fourth estate in any functioning democracy.”
He further said “the moment you begin to trample on media freedoms, then you get it wrong, like it has happened in the past five years.” “You close down the views of the people, you shut-down the voices of the people [and] you can’t hear what the people are saying. You only hear it through the ballot and by that time you are out. We don’t want to go that route,” Mweetwa said.
“The President-elect has a vision for the media. He is a businessman. He has a mission for the media. He wants to transform the way the media operates in this country…” Mweetwa indicated that the UPND remained relevant in the opposition for 23 years because of honest and sincerity.
“It’s because of standing for truth and not appeasement. I don’t think that HH will change. If he does change, the people of Zambia will also change – they will stop supporting him and remove him from office,” he explained, adding that the international community is overjoyed with the election of Hichilema as the Republican President. “[It’s] joy at last. The international community is even taking Zambia as a case study to say ‘there is a government that was heavy-handed, oppressing citizens, abusing police to stifle freedoms of people.’ If you did an opinion poll in the international community, people thought that government would not change in Zambia because it was a brutal government. They are wondering ‘how have you managed as Zambia?’ Zambia has managed it because we don’t have a tradition of having a leadership coming through the bullet [but] we always have a leadership coming through the ballot.”
He pointed out that as Hichilema gets sworn-in today, he should carry on from where he has already begun as the President-elect. “Number one expectation of the people of Zambia is the economy – the issue of debt, the issue of the kwacha-dollar relationship,” Mweetwa said. “For the first time in Zambia’s history, Brentwood institutions – the IMF, the World Bank, are sending representatives to come and be part of the inauguration of Zambia’s Seventh President, HH. That is happening for the first time!”
He emphasised that the business and market industry has confidence in Hichilema. “I don’t want to be overarching about it – the leadership will have to be sober and humble about it. We have to harness this goodwill and use it to the benefit of the people of this country,” he noted.
Around Zambia’s debt, Mweetwa said: “we are coming in to do a forensic audit, to create integrity of numbers – to find out whether what we have been told over the years that Zambia owes is really what we owe.”
