PF members of parliament are a bunch of criminals, says Rainbow Party leader Wynter Kabimba.

And Kabimba says President Edgar Lungu lacks the seriousness required of a Head of State.

Meanwhile, Kabimba says soon, the people of Zimbabwe will be crying again because it is the same corrupt ZANU-PF in power.

Speaking when he featured on CBC tv’s On Record programme yesterday, Kabimba condemned PF MPs for shooting down a motion to expedite payments to retirees.

He said it was criminal for PF MPs to shoot down a motion which hinged on people’s welfare.

“It is criminal that this culture of [failing to pay retirees] has been perpetuated from the MMD days to date. That retiring in this country is consigning you to the mortuary. It is shameful, it is a scandal. I may not agree with Chishimba Kamwbili on many issues but on this one I agree with him. If this was the only issue which he could canvas, I would support him. So it is criminal to retire people and not pay them. Do you know that even some of these DCs who were appointed by Michael Sata, whose contracts have been terminated have not yet been paid up to now. They can’t complete their houses, they can’t send their children to school, they can’t eat, and then when someone moves a motion in parliament to bind the government that these people must be paid, the PF MPs shoot it down because of the arrogance of numbers and after doing that, the same PF MPs in 2021 will go to the same retirees, some of them who will be dead, they will go to their families and ask them to vote for them. What sadism is that? That is being a sadist,” Kabimba said.

“If you have no money, for God’s sake don’t retire anybody. but what is really painful is how PF members of parliament can betray the people by shooting down a motion like that, a motion which has everything to do with the wellbeing of the people. If they are not there to promote the welfare of the people, who in God’s name are they representing in parliament? On whose behalf are they running this country? This is a bunch of criminals! The PF MPs are a bunch of criminals. Their attitudes and activities are criminal. So what do you call criminals when they are in a group? They are a bunch of criminals.”

And Kabimba said President Lungu lacked seriousness.

“Let me tell you the shock that I had myself. You have a coup next door and President Lungu goes to Egypt. The day when he was leaving for Egypt, that was the first day for the coup in Zimbabwe, how do you leave your country when the house next door is burning? What if your own house starts burning?” Kabimba asked.

“I saw this in 1978, President [Julius] Nyerere was in Zambia when there was an attempted coup against Daniel arap Moi in Kenya. Nyerere cut short his visit and flew back to Tanzania because he is Commander in Chief, he must be on the ground.
Here, Edgar goes to Eygpt and he is very happy there whilst there is a coup in Zimbabwe. I have never seen that kind of sense of security about your country. Botswana is right, they have to close borders and here, since it is chipante pante, who even knows whether or not borders should be closed?”

He reminded President Lungu that it was a country he was running, not a law firm.

“Bwana, this is a country! You are running a country! You are not playing, this is not a football match. This shows lack of seriousness and concern that you are running a country. It is not downing on him that he is running a country. This is not a law firm, this is a country bwana. And what is happening can affect all of us so the President must show concern,” Kabimba said.

Kabimba also said SADC had proved itself to be a “toothless bulldog”.

“How can you help your friend when your own house is disorganized? What has SADC done? Nothing! They met today in Angola and there is a story that Zuma is flying to Harare, to go and do what? There is nothing which Zuma is going to do there. SADC has proven that it is a toothless bulldog and nobody will have confidence in SADC anymore after this,” Kabimba said.

“For leaders that want to overstay, and this is where the third term comes in which Lungu is looking for, the more you want to overstay in power, the more corrupt you become, the more corrupt you become, the more you don’t want to leave office. The more corrupt you become, the more you want to oppress divergent views. The more you want to make sure that there is no strong opposition in the country and you start to destroy even the same political party to which you belong. Absolute power corrupts. It is important to respect the power divisions in the party and in the government.”

Meanwhile, Kabimba said the people of Zimbabwe would soon be crying because nothing had changed as ousting Mugabe was orchestrated by the army’s self-preservation interests.

“Unfortunately, Mugabe has been a victim of the factions that he himself started. There are some African leaders that believe that the more your ministers fight, or the more you make your ministers fight amongst themselves, the more secure you are…without realizing that factions in a political party mean indiscipline, that’s what factions are. So you cannot harvest anything positive from indiscipline. You can’t harvest anything positive from factions, he has been beaten to his own game. The army had to take sides between two factions and you must realise that the Zimbabwean army is an establishment from within the ZANU-PF and the problem that they had was that when they realized that Mugabe was about to anoint his wife to take over, the army generals realized that then we will stop eating, she is going to fire us, so there is nothing like democracy here or whatever, it is self preservation and self interest by the army which then rallied the people to pretend as if this is about Mugabe. It is about who should now be in the forefront to eat,” said Kabimba.

“The people have been used as is always the case in Africa and just give this time, and I hope I am wrong, but I am not wrong, just give it time, the same people you hear ululating and dancing disco paja, bazalila (they will cry). Because nothing has changed, this is still ZANU-PF. I don’t see what has changed myself. It is still the same culture of corruption and exclusiveness. This is the same army that has kept Mugabe in power for the last 37 years, this is the same army that has helped Mugabe rig elections, they are the same army that battered [Morgan] Tsuangirai as leader of the opposition together with the police. This is the same army so how can Mugabe be bad and the army is good? The 37 years of Mugabe is the same 37 years of Chiwenga Costantino the army chief. So why are you only counting Mugabe’s 37 years?”