KAUNDA’S ONE-PARTY STATE BETTER THAN TODAY’S DEMOCRACY – KOPULANDE
FORMER Chembe PF Member of Parliament Sebastian Kopulande says Zambia’s current democracy has become so oppressive that the one-party state under Dr Kenneth Kaunda now seems better by comparison.
Meanwhile, Kopulande says with his experience in politics, he has what it takes to be republican president.
Featuring on Capital FM’s ‘The Big Issue’ programme, Saturday, Kopulande said if Zambians had known that the multiparty freedom they fought for in 1991 would lead to the repression they are witnessing today, many would have preferred to remain under Kaunda’s one-party rule.
“Come on Zambia, is this what we chose? If those of us that were there in 1991 had known that the freedom we fought for was going to drive us to this”.
News Diggers
Another person without a plan seeking the presidency. Of all things to suggest, have no opposition to check amd balance. No decenting thoughts allowed? How will this uplift the lives of Zambians? Ba Kopollande please do us a favour. Go away. You have no idea of what you can do for Zambians. Instead you want to bring back old tired useless ideas that you saw growing up and yet you were a Minister or leader in the multiparty era. Did you see no good in what people were able to enjoy? Is one party even sustainable?
Ba Kopulande please! This is a blatant lie Mr. Kopulande is telling us and he knows that it is a blatant lie. In the first place, he would not have dared to say what he has said under the UNIP regime and absolutely no one would have given him the forum.
Super Ken had a very efficient internal spying network (shushushu) such that even family members were scared to criticise the regime in the privacy of their homes. Even walls had ears so to speak. Mr. Chipimo Snr made a statement criticising African leaders in general and he lost the Chairmanship of Standard Bank. I have heard of a story of how no one would approach his van when he was selling potatoes at the market. I watched his interview on ZNBC after MMD came to power. It was heartbreaking. Mr. Kopulande should talk to Mr. Elias Chipimo Jnr to get the full story. If you were blacklisted under the UNIP regime, you were hemmed in from all sides. There was no escape, no place to hide. It was like being thrown out of the synagogue.
I challenge Mr. Kopulande to tell us in which ways we were better off under UNIP than under UPND. Was there freedom of association? No, because there was only one party. Was there freedom of speech? No, there were very few independent newspapers and ZNBC was firmly under the ruling UNIP.
Even State companies (parastals) were not spared. They were infiltrated by party operatives like party committees at place of work, works committe chairmen. Parastal and government workers were forced to make contributions to the construction of the Party headquarters in Lusaka which was later possessed by the MMD government. It is one of the impressive buildings in Lusaka.
Ba Kopulande twapapata, donot mislead the young generation. Yes, the first ten years (1964-74) were wonderful and we enjoyed a reasonably good standard of living. From 1974 after the one party state kicked in, it was a downward spiral and by 1991 life was a living hell.
If this is the calibre of presidential aspirants, God help us! Again I challenge Mr. Kopulande to tell us in which ways the one party state was better. He should not make such careless statements.
Please spare us from those comparisons, if you benefited from one party, it’s you who benefited and keep it to yourself. Otherwise as a nation, we benefited nothing and we wouldn’t want to have such a system again.
You young people don’t know what happened during KK’s rule. Ask us. Why did we remove him if things were good?
Another political dropout who can’t even feel his wobbly feet on the political stage!