THE GOVERNMENT’S MEDDLING IN THE INTERNAL AFFAIRS OF OPPOSITION POLITICAL PARTIES IS AN ACT OF COWARDNESS – KALABA
… as a consortium of opposition political parties say President Hichilema’s path of victimization has the potential to plunge the country into a bloodbath.
LUSAKA, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER, 16, 2023 (SMART EAGLES)
A consortium of opposition political parties says it is an act of grave cowardice for the UPND to start meddling in the internal affairs of opposition parties.
Delivering a statement at the opposition political parties’ joint press briefing in Lusaka today, Citizen First President Harry Kalaba said what started with the DP, and the NDC moved to the CF has now gone to the PF.
He said all these actions are aimed at weakening the opposition in Zambia because the UPND does not want a strong opposition that can stand up to them.
“For the first time in this country’s history, we are having senior military personnel being drafted to participate in covert activities that are intended to disenfranchise the opposition. We want to remind civil servants and the men and women in uniform who are being drafted into covert operations to resist such activities. We would like to warn those pushing such an agenda that we know what is happening and we will not hesitate to hold you personally accountable at the right time,” He said.
“It is apparent that this takeover of parties was made possible owing to the apparent lack of unity among opposition leaders as well as other interest groups and the citizens not taking a position to speak out in favor of democracy. We now have the Patriotic Front (PF) saga where a parallel leadership has been established that is intended to usurp the authority of the only line of defense in the national assembly in their way to turn Zambia into a Party state using an emasculated Parliament and a Judiciary that has proven to be highly conflicted and compromised,” Mr.Kalaba said.
Mr. Kalaba expressed concern at the continued arrests of several opposition leaders on trumped-up charges of espionage arising from them expressing their views in an interview with a Zimbabwean journalist.
“Views that reflect their right to free speech. We want to state for the record, that even for a vindictive and self-righteous person like this leader, the charge of espionage is inconceivable and will cause much shame to this country but it will only help fuel the resolve for the opposition to remain united in fighting the cause for democracy. Such actions are clear evidence of how Zambia today has been auctioned by Mr. Hichilema to foreign commercial interests. We want to tell the Zambian people that it is not Mr. Hichilema who is making some of these decisions. It is his foreign funders who are writing the script and the only thing he is doing is to ask them; “How High he should jump?” We know what is going on, we even know his Caucasian friends who privately boast of how they control him and by default run the country,”.
“ His path of victimization has the potential to plunge the country into a bloodbath, and it is for this reason that we would like to appeal to his remaining thread of consciousness and ask him to take some time and reflect on the onerous responsibility that comes with the position of President. He is not the first commander-in-chief that this country has had and he will certainly not be the last, but so far he has proven to be the first to show blatant abuse of authority to the point where people are scared of expressing themselves to fear of state-sponsored victimization,” Mr.Kalaba noted as he read the statement.
And Mr.Kalaba adds that it is very clear that President Hakainde and his government are hell-bent on surrendering the interest of the country to their foreign backers.
“… and we shudder to think how our forefathers and mothers who fought so valiantly to secure independence for us must be thinking to see this level of betrayal by a leader who is keen to reverse every form of self-actualization and national sovereignty that was won with bloodshed and even loss of life for many. A country with the second largest copper deposits in Africa, coupled with critical minerals and all amanner of precious and semi-precious minerals and a youthful population, the country remains scandalously poor due to misplaced priorities,”.