HICHILEMA: TYRANNY ON THE RISE AS FREEDOM FADES
The escalating crisis of governance and democracy in Zambia under Mr Hakainde Hichilema and the UPND is tragic and most unfortunate for the country.
The dramatic rise in tyranny, ethnic bigotry, grand corruption, tribalism, and other vices under the UPND has left a deep dent on the unity, patriotism, and democracy of this country. Things are no longer the same anymore. Under Mr Hichilema, authoritarianism has returned with vengeance. The escalation of despotism is unbelievable.
It’s painful to see opposition politicians, private citizens, and other critical voices degraded and dehumanised through untold and unseen repression and hardship without any tolerance and restraint from Mr Hichilema and his administration.
It is no longer a secret that Mr Hichilema has set this country on a risky path of destruction. The thoughtless manner in which this administration has been circumventing the law and abusing state institutions in an attempt to destroy political opponents is a clear testament of the criminal intentions of this administration.
This government has literally incapacitated the rule of law and constitutional order in this country, and they are going about their daily business with impunity, without oversight or regard for the moral, political and economic effects of their actions. They have been blatant with their systematic destruction of state institutions with the single resolve of reigning with fear and terror.
All these draconian manoeuvres coupled with the high cost of living, hunger, unstable exchange rate, skyrocketing mealie meal prices, and rampant shortages have made life unbearable for many. The citizens have resigned to fate. They’re hopeless and helpless. They’re pained and frustrated with this incorrigible, manipulative, and fraudulent regime. The people are bitterly disappointed.
But for Mr Hichilema and his league, it’s pretty much business as usual. They see nothing wrong with their repressive tendencies. This is a leadership that is seriously obsessed with power and accumulation and remains distant to the hard-hitting reality facing the majority of citizens on the ground.
Mr Hichilema and his league are trying to entrench themselves without hesitation through manipulation of the law, political and economic exclusion of critics, exercise of physical violence and force, intimidation, and malicious abuse of governance systems.
Under Mr Hichilema and the UPND, a sober, unitary, and visionary solution to the country’s present challenges remains a non-starter. The realistic chance of returning to real governance and democracy under this leadership keeps getting dimmer each day that passes. Clearly, they’re a bad sample of politicians a country must never wish for.
And for democracy to thrive in this country once again, Zambians must recreate it themselves, as Mr Hichilema and his administration won’t give it to them easily. They’re resolved to destroy our democracy. They’re resolved to take us back to the painful past of the one-party rule.
Let’s bravely defy Mr Hichilema’s despotic adventures.
Zambia chalo chesu bonse!
Fred M’membe
President of the Socialist Party
Mmembe always writing long useless articles. You are not fooling anybody but yourself. Evil man.
Shula nafuti Mmembe
Ashula nafuti Mmembe!
Ba M’membe, slow down. Every day, you have something negative to post on HH. You will lose people’s attention. Remember the story of the boy who cried wolf!
Personally, I donot read Dr. M’membe’s articles. They are so predictable like a cheap novel.
The most useless opposition leader!
What kind of freedom is this Man talking about?
Maybe he wants HH to be handing over power to him for some days or over the weekend M Membe is a president kikikiki
Ashula nafuti mmembe
Anya pwele
Anya pwele umufyashi Fred.
Ummmm this man,now he is becoming boring mwe
Little advise to our opposition.
As a patriotic Zambian that wants the best for Zambia am deeply concerned with the trajectory being taken by our opposition parties in the current dispensation. My worry is that our current opposition is about to be recorded as the worst and most useless opposition the country has ever had since independence due to their one direction focus when it comes to their checks and balances of the upnd government. Their focus is entirely on their imagined reduction in the democratic space and illusioned dictatorship of the current leadership. They have totally neglected to talk about the real issues that affect the ordinary voter on the street. My first question is how many of our citizens that are still struggling to meet their daily food, shelter, medical, education and employment needs care about the so called freedom of expression which the opposition alleged is being taken away by the current leadership ? Let’s turn to those of us in middle class that care about freedom of expression, human rights etc how many of us actually believe that the space for freedom of expression or human rights is shrinking as alleged by our opposition especially when we compare the current political environment to the previous environment where opposers of the government were forcefully hounded out of radio by political cadres, opposition parties cadres were maimed by rulling caders for merely comparing for their party, police were shooting to death citizens utilizing their democratic right to assembly, citizens killed through gassing and markets burnt in the name of politics and marketeers and bus drivers deprived of their daily earning by political cadres unlawfully leaving them bin the name of the chipani. Comparing that to the current environment where opposition have the freedom to insult, ridicule and mock the president, the speaker of the national assembly and other government and upnd leaders freely with no intimidation from political cadres, marketeers and bus drivers no longer need to pay party caders illegal levies, no citizens are being killed by police brutality, political violence or gassing, no markets are being burnt in the name of politics, politicians and cadres no longer parade looted wealth on social media to mock hard working professionals and businessmen. With the foregoing in mind how can we really believe that the democratic space is shrinking in the country?
With this in mind our it is clear that when our opposition are focusing on alleged shrinking of democratic space and dictatorship they are only talking for themselves only not the citizens because to us that is not what is important right now. The opposition must know that the story of dictatorship and shrinking democratic space is an old story that is sold by the opposition all the time in the world be it in America, Britain, south Africa etc. no one buys it easily without physical evidence. during the pf it was easy for people to buy it because physical evidence was allover. E.g political violence by cadres, police shooting of innocent citizens, gassing of citizenships, intimidation of political opponents by pf cadres, etc was allover in the news. Videos of such incidences are still available online. No one could doubt the claim of corruption, violence, dictatorship etc because physical evidence was there. But presently those claiming these things have no physical evidence and even us the citizens that are suppose to believe these claims we are not experiencing them. Infact if anything we are seeing a great improvement compared to the past resume. How then does our opposition hope to win our support by solely focusing on shrinking of democratic space, dictatorship and insulting and ridicule of the president and up d leaders. As citizens we want a strong opposition so that the upnd can deliver the best to the citizens, we want the opposition to focus on the needs of the people that affect their daily lives which the upnd are fairly to address. I have just realized that the mmd, pf and upnd were the best opposition parties
the country has ever had. I.e the mmd faught for democratization of the country which they achieved, the pf under sata held the mmd accountable insuring that whatever the government did was somewhat inline with the interest of the citizens e.g constitutional reforms and the upnd advocated for delivery of development in their strong holds e.g kafue mazabuka road. Upnd mps talked about this road all the time in parliament until the pf had to fix it even when it was in an opposition strong hold leaving roads like nchelenge chiengi road, chinsali nakonde road etc that were in their strong hold unattended to. What is our current opposition advocating for that affects the citizens directly. I recently used the nchelenge chiengi road. Truth be told it’s non existent. There is simply no road. Then one must wonder are those living in chelenge and chiengi not Zambians, is it not our politicians both rulling and opposition that should speak for them? Why are we not hearing our opposition talk about the challenges the people of chiengi are facing? Do these people care about freedom of expression more than the luck of road network that is hampering their economic and social development? Chitalu chilufya, Ronald chitotela and nickson chilangwa you have not only been mps for the people of luapula province but have held very influential position both in government and pf party what have you done about nchelenge chiengi road. You are now opposition mps why are you not talking about this road? Is it not you to speak for the people of chiengi and nchelenge? But your focus is only democracy, freedom of expression and dictatorship, how do you hope your focus of these three things will address the luck of road network between chiengi and nchelenge? This is merely an example of the numerous issues affecting our citizens that our opposition has neglected to talk about in preference to one focus on freedom, democracy and dictatorship. What our opposition needs to know is that few people are actually reading or listening to their messages because they don’t address their immediate needs. While the opposition are selling this stale message the upnd are using cdf to address the things that affects citizen daily lives. It’s about time our opposition realizes that their current message is falling on deaf ears. It’s about time they begin to offer real checks and balances regarding delivery of development that address the needs of the people. It our desire as citizens that we continue to have a thriving opposition in the country at all times but unfortunately that’s not the case currently. Please heed while there is still time otherwise we may end up having upnd for the next 20 years.