Patriotic Front Party
Lusaka
2nd June, 2022
STATEMENT FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
RESPECT LUNGU, FOR HE WORKED
THE Patriotic Front (PF) party is appalled by the lack of civility being exhibited by the government’s chief spokesperson towards our former republican President, His Excellency Dr Edgar Chagwa Lungu.
It’s hypocritical and outright childish for Hon. Chushi Kasanda to accuse Dr Lungu of being bitter for shunning the commissioning of the Kenneth Kaunda Wing of Mulungushi International Conference Centre by President Hakainde Hichilema on Tuesday.
The PF is aware of the motive of inviting Dr Lungu to the event. The government and the horde of political cadres it had mobilised wanted to embarrass the former President as they have done in the past, but he was smarter than them.
We know that President Hichilema would have read his whole speech without mentioning the man who had travelled to China and clinched the project on behalf of the people of Zambia.
President Lungu would have just been sitting there as a nobody without being acknowledged as was the case during the funeral of former President Rupiah Bwezani Banda recently.
It would have been very embarrassing for President Lungu to sit there while President Hichilema delivered a tirade accusing his administration of corruption and being a clique of thieves.
It would also have been inappropriate for Dr Lungu to attend the highly politicised function only to hear that Investigative wings had raised the home of one of the members of his family or of of his former aides the next day.
We would like to remind our flamboyant Minister of Information and Media that she is the chief spokesperson for the government of the Republic of Zambia, and not for the United Party for National Development (UPND). Her statements should therefore be sober and measured. She is behaving like a ward level cadre.
It’s laughable for her to claim that the PF did nothing when her own President went to commission a project the former ruling party initiated and left at near-completion level.
The minister should refrain from competing with the UPND secretariate in issuing demeaning and offensive statements targeting the former President and his administration.
President Lungu will not stoop low by allowing himself to be embarrassed in public by those who do not even have the shame to proudly commission the projects he initiated without mentioning his name.
Chushi Kasanda should tame her excitement because Zambians have not forgotten how President Hichilema shunned all the national functions officiated by Dr Lungu when he was in the opposition.
They have also not forgotten how President Hichilema refused to acknowledge and respect President Lungu, whom he disrespectfully called Mr Lungu for his whole five-year term of office.
But Dr Lungu called Mr Hichilema “Mr President” after the latter had won the Presidential election even before he was sworn in.
Let her and her president leave our former President alone and concentrate on defending the lies they told Zambians during campaign s towards the August 2022 general elections.
Issued by:
EDWIN Lifwekelo
PF Deputy Media Director.