LUNGU IS STRESSED
… I don’t want to say he looked drunk – Mweetwa
By Kombe Mataka
UPND spokesperson Cornelius Mweetwa says former president Edgar Lungu is stressed.
Lungu when PF members of parliament and cadres thronged his house in Ibex on Tuesday to offer solidarity to his wife, Esther, whose 15 flats in State Lodge is an interest of the Drug Enforcement Commission, said it was good he gave up power so that Zambians could compare
which one was better.
He told the cheering crowd that many people including Antonio Mwanza told him to resist conceding defeat following.
“Antonio when you blamed me for giving up power, a lot of you were saying, ‘you should resist’. But I can assure you it was the right thing to do, so that you can see and compare… We are standing head and shoulder above them now,” Lungu said, in reference to President Hakainde Hichilema and his UPND government.
He said one doesn’t need to be very intelligent to know that he is next after his wife’s investigation by DEC.
“So I am ready. They say I am hiding behind the immunity. I am not hiding behind anything. I know what is going on. The aim is just to make sure that they kill PF, they kill my political life. I am still politically active although not in leadership. But I can still give an opinion. I still have influence. They are worried about that. I have said I am no longer there but I am a living being. In short you can consult me,” said Lungu.
“So they want me out of it completely but you can kill the body but you can’t kill the soul. You can’t kill the ideas. So there are people who believe in what we believed in as PF and we still believe in…People have been able to compare oranges and they can tell which ones are wholesome and which ones are rotten.”
But Mweetwa, who is also Southern Province minister, said the loss of power had finally dawned on Lungu.
“When the people were talking, they could not hear what people were saying. Now that power has left him, those opportunities they were abusing have become difficult to access. They are now beginning to get sober. They are now beginning to sober up. That is when they have begun to realise and speaking like this. I sympathise with president Lungu. When he was speaking, he looked…I don’t want to say he looked drunk. I think the fairest is to say he is stressed,” he said. “Whatever is stressing him in a free environment where freedoms are guaranteed is something that we need inquire into. The former president is human. He needs to enjoy peace too. He is under a safe administration. I want him to know that he should not stress. He is safe under this administration.”
Mweetwas said there was nothing to compare between governance in the PF and that of the UPND.
“PF were drunk with power coupled with corruption. The country degenerated as though it did not have a leader. The country began to be run by cartels in the run up to the elections. There was
practically no government running the country. If the cartels had bulldozed themselves and got into office by now hell would have broken loose in Zambia. So when you see the way they are talking, it is because they were too drunk with power,” he said. “PF were drunk with power and what makes leaders get drunk with power is when you abandon adherence to rule of law. Rule of law is what sets the framework or jurisdiction of your mandate so that your trappings of authority, of power, will not make us go beyond the province of our authority using human judgment, using emotions, logic and thinking. That is why the President [Hakainde Hichilema] is insisting on the rule of law. So when you abandon rule of law, you get drunk with power.”
And Mweetwa said police should do its own investigations concerning revelations by Lungu that individuals like former media director Antonio Mwanza and others unknown had asked Lungu not to hand over power.
“As a party we don’t want to be instigating the operations of arms of government. We want to leave the matter to the professionals to make a determination that there was a travesty of the law. However, the issue for us is that refusing to hand over power in Zambia is treason and that is why we have relevant security agencies to ensure that there was no breach of the Constitution,” he said.
“We are very clear in our minds as UPND and the President has insisted and made it abundantly clear, in no uncertain circumstances, that when our time comes to leave we shall leave the stage graciously. You have seen that the President is walking the talk in so far as his election promises are concerned. Fundamental amongst them is adherence to the rule of law. There is no opportunity therefore that at some stage, the UPND will become a menace to the people. But we are also fully aware that power when abused you can get drank.”