UPND’S METHODICAL POLITICS WILL SOON DEVOUR THEM
The Scoop Editorial: September 14, 2022
When Bowman Lusambo said there will be the elections in Kabushi unless his name is on the ballot box, he knew what he was saying. He knew he would go to court and get a favourable judgement.
He knew that the systems that the PF left behind would facilitate this. He knew there is a Constitutional Court that prides itself in creating confusion each time it is presented with cases of politics in nature to adjudicate upon. All his moves are well-calculated and spot on.
While the UPND are basking in the ruling party honeymoon, Nebuchadnezzar is out grazing with the cows next door but they can’t see anything. To them, it is the rule of law. To them, it is the methodical way of doing things. To them, it is being smart to a point where even the staunch UPND members are now worried. Some of them have talked and talked about getting rid of systems left by the PF but nothing has changed.
It is simple logic; how many serious cases has the PF lost to the UPND? Almost zero! How do you expect fair trial from the same judges who never wanted you to rule? The same judges who played mickey-mouse over the petition hearing in 2016?
The PF were celebrating even before the previous case in this Lusambo-Joe Malanji saga was determined because to them, it is like expecting a judgment from your lawyers but the biggest question is, for how long will the UPND continue giving its members who suffered so much for the party to win election heartache? Do those in leadership care about the humiliating insults their members are enduring from the opposition?
For example, how do you explain a situation where Constituency Development Funds (CDF) are made available and sent to constituencies but the monies cannot be disbursed? In a functional civil service, should it take the President to summoned those responsible before the money can be released to the public? We don’t think so.
Today, if the PF want, they can shut down this country through the structures they left in Government which the UPND are flirting with. If people think this is a lie, they should just read the PF manifesto and they will realise that no one during their reign could be given any senior position unless they were bonafide members of the party.
Service delivery in the civil service is suffering because of sabotage. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist for you to understand this. Just go to the Passport Office today and see the organised confusion which is there where people have to wait for up to five months without getting a passport all because they are told there is no material for printing them.
We know of some people who have lost scholarships because they did not manage to get passports on time. We know if some patients who died home because they could not be evacuated out of the country to get medical help because their passports could not be processed on time.
Ask the Ministry of Home Affairs on what it has done to rectify the situation, and you will get no answer. The impression is that Government has no money to procure material needed to process passports. The other lie you will hear from Passport Office is that it has run out of material because it is processing passports for our defence teams going out of the country for peacekeeping but is this the first time that we are sending troops out of the country for this mission?
Go to bus stations and markets and you will find that cadres are still in full force trying to collect revenue from these facilities; the same way things were done under PF. That revelation of cadres preventing people from boarding certain buses in Kamwala South is nothing. There are serious cases across the country even after the President made a pronouncement that cadres be removed from these places.
There is just a general degeneration everywhere which has not only impacted negatively on service delivery but also put the ruling party in a very awkward position. The ruling party thinks that it is playing smart politics and can get away with it. Politics is about perception. While Lusambo and Malanji were said to be doing umungulu in Lusaka, they knew where they were standing and just a simple stay, sprung them into wild celebration as if they had won an election because they know that such consistent small gains have a huge impact on their image.
Today, the PF is mocking the party in power that they are clueless hyenas who do not know how to govern. They may have a pointy. How do you govern with the same people you were running battles with just over a year ago? The ruling party looks more clueless than the PF itself and this is the UPND’s undoing.
Under PF, when people were complaining, those close to Edgar Lungu told him everything was okay. It was the same story with RB and it seems UPND has not learnt anything from its unmatched experience in the opposition and is going the same route whose end is disastrous. If not careful, the UPND will go into political oblivion methodically. For now, let the PF celebrate its victories because they have earned them free on a silver plate.