By Kellys Kaunda
MAKE NO MISTAKE – A STRONG AND UNITED PF IS A MUST FOR ZAMBIA
There is no doubt in my mind that a strong and united Patriotic Front (PF) is good for Zambia, Zambians, and Zambia’s democracy. Just look at the checks and balances the party continues to provide both in parliament and outside. Arrested by the police and charged with all kinds of funny and spurious charges or kicked out of parliament by the Speaker for laughable reasons, they have continued fearlessly to serve this country, its people, and its democracy.
The party has found a way to work with other opposition parties thus increasing pressure on the ruling UPND. Just look at and listen to the way they blend their opposition voices and the solidarity they give one another in the face of what is clearly state persecution! You’ ve got to love these brothers and sisters and thank them for their courage. It’s not easy being an opposition politician in this country.
However, this scenario is not new in Zambia: this has been the political terrain in the country since the Kaunda days. The ruling party, abusing its powers and those of the state, has always turned the heat on the opposition suffocating it. UNIP suffocated Kapwepwe until his death. MMD suffocated UNIP until it was decapitated never rising again. PF launched an onslaught against MMD and exploited its internal wrangles until it was too weak to mount any meaningful challenge. It also mounted vicious and relentless attacks against the main opposition UPND, no words can be found to adequately capture what, looking back, may only be described as madness!
I mean how else can one explain forcing an opposition leader to escape from a media house through the rooftop or smoking him out of his house by the state police in the same way that the Mexican police or the Colombian security forces would do in search of some of the world’s notorious drug lords in the name of El Chapo and Pablo Escobar, respectively! And yet, in our case, it was just an ordinary citizen participating in a democratic process!
History is repeating itself: the same strategy and tactics that have been employed before have been deployed in the political arena as PF faces an arsenal of political weaponry that it employed against the opposition when it was in power. While the onslaught may not be exact in every detail, the strategy and the players are the same: exploit internal wrangles, decapitate the opposition by using institutions of the state, the same institutions that are supposed to uphold democracy.
In all these instances, the west has not necessarily served the day: some of them have exploited the situation for their own foreign policy interests. Instead, it is the Zambian people that have rescued their own political institutions and their democracy. Believe you me, they will rescue it once again! One would only hope and trust that PF will find the courage to remain resilient, and work with other opposition parties to defend Zambia’s democracy.
In the pursuit of this national cause, please, never draw in any foreign entities, especially the west, you will be giving them an excuse to impose values on this country that you will begin to frantically fend off when they demand that you pay back for the favors you owe them. You don’t want to be in debt with these brothers – believe you me.
They have not checked any balances in parliament apart from saying hh has failed and wanting pf with lungu to facilitate they thieving channels.
You should also indicate that history repeats itself by citing what happened in PF in 2014, two conventions each with it’s own election and injuctions some granted as early as 02:00 hours. At least we’re sure that the party where leadership wrangles were was also the ruling party.
Please include that to your analysis, then you won’t be considered to be a biased analyst, especially with your vast media experience.
Beneficiaries of PF brutal regime crying out. What checks and balances are PF MPs doing? Advise them to have their conventions. The 60 day ultimatum is coming to a close. They will cry foul when registrar of societies cracks her whip. The one man parties will be exposed and deregistered. We want serious opposition parties. So if Lungu dropped dead, God forbid, then PF cannot survive? Please do not misunderstand me i want long life for Lungu so he can be humiliated again; and i want him to see his day in court for his corruption deals.
I would have expected a better analysis of the happenings and wrangles in PF by Mr. Kelly’s Kaunda , what with his vast experience in the media. Kellys Kaunda started by accusing the UPND government of orchestrating the wrangles in PF. But this is not true.
PF have only themselves to blame. Had they gone for a convention to elect new office bearers, all this confusion wouldn’t be there. Miles Sampa could have lost in a democratic manner and he would certainly have accepted the outcome. But what did Given Lubinda and Nakachinda do? They started procrastinating just to create room for Edgar Lungu to take back the party presidency. Or to put it more correctly, Edgar Lungu tricked everyone in PF using Given Lubinda and Nakachinda because of his evil desire to get back to power in order to settle scores with his nemesis.
But he miscalculated. And the result is this confusion in PF. It happened with Super Ken ( KK ). It happened with FTJ ( Fredrick Chiluba). It almost happened with RB. All these men had selfish desires and they all didn’t succeed. They just seriously damaged their once powerful political parties..
So Kellys Kaunda ought to advise his friends in PF grow up and stop blaming the UPND government for their wrangles.
Ba Kaunda, PF is incorrigible, beyond redemption.
Just look at the lawlessness with which they conduct their business even when they are not in power. The insults, the threats (soon to be followed by panga wieding).
The only good PF is a dead one. This is one opposition party I would not miss. PF was a disaster for our country and it will take a long time to recover from their misrule.