By Fanny Kalonda
SOCIALIST Party president Fred M’membe says President Hakainde Hichilema’s press conference revealed that there is too much rivalry and anger in politics.
President Hichilema held a press conference on Monday where he highlighted Raphael Nakacinda’s tribal rantings, “clique of thieves” trying to avoid fast-track courts, how he has avoided being vindictive to PF leaders who abused and detained him.
He said the UPND government had restored freedoms and liberties and put to an end cadre impunity.
President Hichilema noted that UPND cadres wanted to revenge stressing that if he had allowed it, the country could have been a bloodbath.
He said the very people who used to beat up UPND members, “teargassing us, think they are clever”.
“Thank God you have this President,” he said.
President Hichilema said he won’t allow UPND members to be the new thugs in markets, bus stations or society.
“I know there’s pressure. But I’m sitting on the lid. No revenge. But you who were beating people, don’t celebrate. Pray harder that there’s decent leadership today,” he said. “This order is not by choice. It’s orchestrated. Thugs who hunted us, we know them. We are saying behave yourself. I wasn’t allowed to pay respects to [late Dr] Kenneth Kaunda. They very people who didn’t allow me pay respects to KK, when Rupiah Banda died, I invited them. And next, they are saying things [in reference to Edgar Lungu.”
But Dr M’membe wondered “what was the purpose of that press conference?”
“It’s difficult to discern the purpose of that highly publicised press conference. It is said that if one has nothing serious or important to say it’s better to shut up. As Pythagoras once observed, we should strive to have something important to say before we open our mouths. Abraham Lincoln said, ‘Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.’ I’m not suggesting we remain silent all the time. But it’s all too easy to speak thoughtlessly. That can make you look less intelligent than you are, and you will minimise the chances of it happening if you think carefully before you open your mouth,” he said. “The virtues of silence have long been recognised. The popular saying ‘speech is silver but silence is golden’ may date back to ancient Egypt. It probably means that in some circumstances the less you say the better it is. Ecclesiastes teaches that there is ‘a time to be silent and a time to speak.’ However, Ecclesiastes doesn’t give guidance as to which situations merit which response. Each situation becomes a judgment call.”
Dr M’membe said, “all what that press conference revealed is that there’s too much rivalry and anger in our politics – the disease of rivalry and vainglory”.
“When that dominates our thoughts, we forget our fundamental duty as political leaders – to ‘do nothing from selfishness or conceit but in humility count others better than ourselves.’ As political leaders, we must look not only to our own interests, but also to the interests of others,” said Dr M’membe.