PF deputy national chairperson Davies Chama says President Hakainde Hichilema is embarrassing himself by bragging that he has achieved a lot in the few weeks of being in government.

And Chama says it’s unfortunate that President Hichilema is using state resources to campaign for a councillor.

Commenting on President Hichilema’s remarks that his government had been able to do a lot more within the few weeks of being in office which PF could never have done, Chama said it was embarrassing for a President to start praising himself.

“You know when power starts getting to somebody’s head, you can tell that someone is panicking. Not only [has] power got to his head, but he is also in panic mode. If someone can say that within two months, he has done so much in comparison to what the PF has done, it is very laughable. You know when you live in an illusion and you are a perpetual liar and power gets to your head, you even forget that you are lying. Lying is a habit, you start believing your own lies. Not to appear that I am insulting, he is just embarrassing himself,” he said.

“It is a very sad scenario, I don’t even know what to say, for even the President to start boasting that he has achieved so much by ending violence in this country, he has achieved absolutely nothing. You know it is people who are supposed to be telling you but you start praising yourself. He has a lot of things to do, he has a long way to go. He must slow down, power has started to get to his head very quickly, he is getting excited. He should stop boasting and he should work.”

He said violence had increased under President Hichilema’s leadership.

“He is better off starting to work because if you ask him, has he even finished the appointments of Permanent Secretaries? He hasn’t! So what measure is he saying that he has done [a lot]? Has he finished violence? Honourable Given Lubinda, the vice president was attacked in Kaumbwe. There is evidence that people were attacked at courts. People are being attacked every day. Bus drivers have even gone to court that they want to go back to the stations to operate. Things that have never happened [before], MMD never chased anybody from operating from stations or from markets. When we took over power in 2011, we never chased anybody from operating from markets and bus stops,” Chama said.

“Even these by-elections, there is a lot of violence being perpetrated. There are even pictures of the Socialist Party president Fred M’membe, his members were attacked in Petauke. You start even wondering what type of intelligence is the President getting for him to start boasting that he has finished violence, if anything violence has increased to a level that you can never believe. There is a commission to look into violence and voting patterns that was constituted by president Edgar Lungu. The report is there for the President to look in. If President Hakainde Hichilema really wants to stop the violence, he needs to read that report and implement its recommendations and findings, it will help him to be truthful.”

Chama said it was unfortunate that the police were failing to protect PF members.

“Now he is President of the country and Commander-in-Chief of the Defence Forces, he is not the president of the UPND for God’s sake. He needs to be serious; he needs to be truthful, he needs to be practical, otherwise, at the rate at which this country is going, I am scared, I am really scared. There is so much violence taking place. Even the police are failing to protect our members. If our members take the law into their own hands, I tell you this country will go into something else, because people are becoming fed up, where even the security are unable to protect them. So our members are questioning ‘what should we do’?” he said.

Meanwhile, Chama said UPND officials would soon be called criminals too.

He said it was unfortunate that President Hichilema was using state resources to campaign for a councillor.

“Have you ever heard in Zambia since independence, if there is an election a President leaving State House to go and campaign for a councillor? Have you ever heard that? It is not that it cannot happen, you know you have a lot of other important things to do. Assuming that there were elections in all these wards and the President had to go to all the wards,” said Chama.

“A President wasting state resources, taking all the security detail, vehicles, all the expenses that go to move the President for him to go and campaign for the councillor. It is very unfortunate that we have already become very wasteful, going around the country, flying around at a great expense just to go and campaign for a councillor. They don’t even want to be criticized. It is unfortunate when you label leaders that they were criminals and very soon they will be called criminals as well, they will be called thieves, very soon.”