Governance activist Brebner Changala has insisted that Zambia needs to go for early elections and usher in a new administration, charging that the Patriotic Front (PF) has lost legitimacy and has now become dangerous to the electorate.
Last week, Parliamentary Chief Whip Brian Mundubile argued that calls for early elections in Zambia on the pretext that the PF government had failed to manage the economy were unfounded, explaining that most of the challenges government was dealing with were inherited from previous administrations.
But in an interview, Changala regretted that the PF government was posing a threat to the country’s democracy after losing its legitimacy to govern.
“When a government loses legitimacy, it becomes dangerous. What is happening in this country is that we are in a de-facto dictatorship, a silent dictatorship. The President has sent the police on the streets to stifle dissent so that people cannot talk and this is where our democracy is in serious setback. So, the opposition, like I said last time, they must come together and find a common path in which they can break this code of oppression, which has been set by the PF. This pressure has also been extended to the civil society and the media; I don’t know how many times Prime TV has been raided by the police. Whenever they see a caption on TV, they rush there to demand for a recording. Something like that can only happen in a police state,” Changala said.
“The current government of Mr Edgar Lungu is seriously dangerous and it’s high time the people of Zambia knew. There is only one more step that we are remaining with: they will start killing the moment they see that power is slipping away, because, why harass the people of Zambia? What we are seeing today in PF, if MMD had applied it to PF, then PF would not have formed government. So, really, elections in this country is our demand and the retirement of Mr Edgar Chagwa Lungu is our call.”
He said there was nothing more that President Lungu and his administration would do to improve the country’s depressed economy because the ruling party had already lost their popular mandate from the people.
“We are calling on the President to sit down and reflect and invite his inner spirits and see whether he has every right to spend an extra day in State House. He needs to go back to the people and renew his mandate; Kaunda did it, he must also not just stick to the five-year mandate. Employees are employed on term basis like three-year contracts or five-year contracts, which are later on renewed or cancelled based on performance. Coaches are employed for a period of five to eight years, but contracts can be terminated due to poor performance by the coach. Our coach for Zambia is Mr Edgar Chagwa Lungu, but his contract has been terminated and he has to help the people of Zambia to move forward by holding an early election. That’s how you maintain peace in any civilised society,” said Changala.
“He’s sitting at State House using injury time. He knows very well that waiting to hold elections in 2021 is taking people for granted for too long. Nobody needs him there, we owe him nothing, but he owes us everything. One of the debts that he owes us is good governance, which he has unfortunately failed to perform. So, he must go and the earlier he does that, the better. This country must reset itself and start afresh, we cannot be held hostage by the very fact that we voted. He can’t hold us hostage, we have decided, and decided like yesterday to divorce Mr Edgar Chagwa Lungu. So, he must go back where he came from. His time, unfortunately, has run out.”
4 Responses
If there is any threat to our democracy it’s the people like him who are a threat to democracy because as at we have legal government in power and calling for early election is recipe for noise.
Lungu and his whole team must go now!
If you can talk any how like that without direction and people insult any how including the head of state..and you say he has sent police on the streets “stifle dissent so that no one talks”, total mess by a professional like you.. remember that the country you are painting dark and people you are inciting are the same people and country you want to rule over..careful or else you will be born by your own fire..Mark my words
PF has never an election in the reigns of ECL. He has imposed himself on us. You even saw how they threw away the UPND petition, it was all crooked. This one will face a lot of cases when he leaves office. In fact the biggest charge he will face is treason. You know what type of punishment follows that charge. Nasiya ine Tata.