Absentee FDD leader Edith Nawakwi says she is seeking an appointment with President Edgar Lungu because she has “a lot to talk about with him”, unlike UPND which is refusing to dialgoue.

And Nawakwi says closing shops and chasing away vendors from Lusaka’s Central Business District will not stop the spread of cholera because most of the available drinking water in residential areas are contaminated.

Featuring on 5FM’s Burning Issue programme yesterday, Nawakwi said she would do everything possible to ensure that she met President Edgar Lungu because there were a lot of issues she had to address with him.

“I personally want to see President Lungu because we don’t want to go to 2021 with the issues which beset us in the last election. The questions we must resolve are; are we going to go the next election on the same electoral system as the one we encountered in the last couple of elections? And for me I actually wonder what my brothers and sisters in the UPND stand for. Our chairman, my elder sister Honourable Nalumango should give direction to the UPND. But if they are not willing to talk…me I want to meet the leadership in PF because we need to agree on the issues which were left outstanding by the electoral commission. What type of electoral register are we going to use in 2021 and what is the electoral system,” Nawakwi said.

“And you see…me I don’t understand because UPND had the best opportunity with support of the outsiders to sit down with the other side whom they think took their vote and say; ‘let’s change the following’, but they say they don’t want to talk. Me I want to talk because I want to know how we are going to collect the votes from the polling station. So if we don’t sit down brothers and sisters, we are going to be faced with the same problems that people were raising in the last election.”

She said although NAREP leader Elias Chipimo had failed to secure an appointment with President Lungu, she was confident that she would succeed.

“I doubt if today I called Mr [Amos] Chanda and said I want to make an appointment with the President, I want to discuss how we as a people can add value to Mukula, I don’t think he can refuse. I have not tried yet but I will ask [the party Spokesperson] Mr Antonio Mwanza to make the necessary arrangements so that as FDD, we can meet the President,” she said.

And Nawakwi said shutting down markets was not the solution for cholera.

“At this point in time it’s not about shutting markets. The government should mobilise every available resource and find boreholes and pump that water out in places like Gorge Compound, that is the solution. Then the other thing we have been told is that fish and other products are contaminated, the source of that contamination is not particularly the meet itself but it simply tells you as a person who understands water that Lusaka Water and Sewerage Company is supplying contaminated water and we need to be told straight away as to whether we are safe drinking tap water from Lusaka Water because someone can have clean vegetables but as long as they wash them in contaminated water, then the whole city will be contaminated.”