UPND deputy secretary general Patrick Mucheleka says his party’s victory in Tuesday’s Sesheke parliamentary by-election shows that people are ready for change despite the hostile political environment created by the ruling party.

In an interview, Wednesday, Mucheleka also warned that President Edgar Lungu and Home Affairs Minister Stephen Kampyongo would be extradited to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for the crimes committed by the police in Sesheke once the UPND formed government.

“The people of Sesheke have spoken loud and clear and they have demonstrated that when it comes to the will of the people, no amount of intimidation, no amount of gun firing, teargassing can stop the will of the people! The people of Sesheke did not fear the guns that President Lungu and Kampyongo imported into Sesheke as a means of intimidating them and creating fear so that a few PF cohorts could go and cast a vote for them because even in Sesheke, there are a few individuals who eat with PF and those are the few who voted for them! But the reasonable majority of people of Sesheke put fear aside and voted for the UPND,” Mucheleka said.

“The people of Sesheke have demonstrated that when time comes, they cannot fear guns or any form of intimidation, and sooner than later that will spread out to the rest of the country. People are ready for change, people are saying ‘enough is enough!’ These are fellows in PF, ministers who are looting, robbing the people of Zambia, daylight robbery! The people of Chitotela, and he is not the only one, it starts from the highest. And this is why they are so desperate and ready to kill! But as they endanger other peoples’ lives, they must know that their own lives will also be in danger because people will not sit back and allow Lungu to think that he will always use the police to cause mayhem.”

And Mucheleka warned that President Lungu and Kampyongo would be extradited to the ICC for crimes against humanity once the UPND forms government.

“In Africa, we have examples of dictators who have ended up very badly, even Lungu’s godfather Robert Mugabe himself, next door in Zimbabwe, was it not General Chiwenga himself who turned against Mugabe? People are not happy, the police are not happy, people in the (civil) service are not happy. Yes, he may have (Inspector-General Kakoma) Kanganja, but the body language of the police as shown yesterday, must tell you something. Those same police officers will turn against Lungu, against Kampyongo and we shall use the same police officers at the right time to arrest Lungu and Kampyongo for crimes against humanity! These are people who are likely to end up at the International Criminal Court in the Hague for crimes against humanity because they committed crimes against humanity. They may get away with it now, but time will come for them to be held accountable for these atrocities. The good part is that people are ready to defend themselves, people are ready to defend democracy as the case was in Sesheke,” Mucheleka said.

“Wherever they go, they instil fear through the use of violence. They carried thugs from Intercity (Bus Terminus), Kulima Tower and other places in Lusaka to go and cause violence in Sesheke; you saw what they were doing and the police reacted, you saw how they were butchered! I want to ask President Lungu and Kampyongo, let them, for once, read a book by George Orwell called ‘Animal Farm,’ which talks about how a particular pig trained dogs and used them to cause violence on other animals. What happened later on was that the same dogs later on turned against the pig that trained them to be inflicting pain on other animals! It is a clear message on President Lungu and Kampyongo: those PF thugs they are sending to attack innocent people, tomorrow will turn against them! We have seen that before. You saw the police reaction on PF thugs, it was not a good sign, Lungu and Kampyongo must worry.”

And Mucheleka insisted that Kampyongo was ignorant to suggest that the UPND could not hold rallies where President Lungu was also campaigning in Sesheke, arguing that there is no such a law in the Republican Constitution.

“You saw the PF thugs with offensive weapons and how they caused mayhem during the campaigns because they are so dull and shallow, they don’t even know the law! Listen, what a Minister of Home Affairs was saying that ‘the law will visit you,’ because for him, when President Lungu is in Sesheke for campaigns, you don’t have to be there as opposition political parties, which law says that? And that was coming from a Minister of Home Affairs? What a shame! How can you have a Minister of Home Affairs who has no iota of even any form of common sense or little intelligence to understand the Constitution? It’s such a shame to have such people, thugs masquerading as leaders,” said Mucheleka.