UPND deputy secretary general Patrick Mucheleka has advised people resigning from their parties to join PF to do so at their peril.
Commenting on the recent fracas at the PF secretariat where Innocent Kalimanshi was beaten and had his car damaged, Mucheleka said it had become a common trend for the PF to disown their cadres once they commit offences.
“As expected, the PF through Mumbi Phiri have disowned Innocent Kalimanshi as not being their member by alleging he is a UPND member who was sent as a spy into the PF,” he said. “This is barely two weeks after the PF again disowned their members who stormed and attacked a civil servant at the Ministry of Works [and Supply].”
Mucheleka said the UPND had told Zambians that PF would never take responsibility for anything.
“…Whether it be broken economy, breakdown in law and order, and other ills that they blame it on other people or situations,” he said. “As a responsible political party, we in the UPND do not deny that Kalimanshi once joined our party together with our former vice-president Geoffrey Bwalya Mwamba (GBM), but he together with GBM again went back to rejoin the PF.”
Mucheleka said disowning and discarding of erring members by the PF should be a lesson to all.
“They will pretend to accept you today, use you to do and say evil things against the Zambian citizens, then discard you when things backfire on the image of the PF. Can you imagine after all the heinous crimes Kalimanshi has been doing publicly, including insulting ministers, yet he was being tolerated when it suited the PF! Today because of the public backlash on the violence that took place at the PF secretariat, they have disowned him by labelling him as a UPND member,” he said. “Even assuming Kalimanshi was a UPND member, does that justify as the reason he was mercilessly beaten by PF with properties damaged by PF thugs. Is that the way the PF would like to treat the opposition members?”
Mucheleka advised all those who are resigning from their political parties to join the PF to know that “you are not being trusted, as you are viewed as spies who are just being used and they will discard you when they feel you are no longer relevant”.