Lungu, we are also ready for you – Mampa
By Oliver Chisenga
A MEMBER of the ruling UPND says former president Edgar Lungu should be ashamed to talk about the country’s democratic space which he failed to give the Zambian people during his tenure.
Happy Mampa has accused the former president of being bitter and having “selective amnesia’’.
During a press briefing in Lusaka recently, Lungu called out President Hakainde Hichilema for what he described as attempts to eliminate democracy in the country.
Lungu reiterated that his return to active politics had been necessitated by President Hichilema and the ruling party’s undertaking to ‘kill’ the Patriotic Front.
Lungu claimed that there has been an “assault on democracy” which has become much more vivid when the victim, the PF, is being treated as a villain.
“So we are called upon, as a country, to wage another vicious war to liberate ourselves. It will not be easy but this is a fight we are determined to win,” said Lungu.
But Mampa recalled that Lungu as president declared a threatened state of emergency in 2017 and the Church in Zambia warned that the country was “not far from dictatorship”.
“ECL should not have amnesia. His regime was the most brutal and for him to cry over what he calls shrinking democracy does not make sense. Just like Wynter Kabimba said, his rule can only be compared to hell,’’ Mampa said. ‘’ECL is just a bitter man [and] because of his bitterness he now wants to challenge the government. Let him do it within the confines of the law than incite citizens. If they are not happy with the freedom he has, let him go to court, he should not take the law into his own hands.”
He said it was during President Hichilema’s administration that the ‘Defamation of the President’ clause was removed from the Penal Code.
Mampa said if President Hichilema was not keen on allowing democracy to flourish, he would have not removed the clause which criminalised criticism of the presidency.
“[Lungu] lost by a margin of over 1 million votes, Zambians rejected him. We don’t know why, maybe because his ego has been bruised and now wants to return to threaten the peace of the country and start sponsoring the terror we saw under his reign. That shall not happen, not [on] our watch,’’ said Mampa. ‘’President Lungu, we are also ready for you. You dare start any confusion and you will see that indeed the country is now of laws rather than men.”-The Mast