Patriotic Front (PF) media director Sunday Chanda says the nine opposition political party leaders who met which Hakainde Hichilema to discuss means in which they can block President Edgar Lungu’s 2021 presidential bid, have all proved that they are useful idiots to the UPND leader.

In a statement, Chanda said it was “stinky thinking” for the opposition leaders’ to try and attempt to cast aspersions on what constitutes a “Presidential Term” when the Constitutional Court which is the final authority has already made a ruling.

And Chanda charged that the ten opposition leaders are only a bunch of comedians misleading each other and citizens.

“A ‘useful idiot’ is a colourful term for a person who is a propagandist for a cause of whose goals they are not fully aware and who are used cynically by the (mis) leaders of the cause. The leaders of political parties who recently met at a hotel in Lusaka fit the bill of both terms quite nicely. Chishimba Kambwili, Elias Chipimo, Mike Mulongoti, Charles Milupi, Sean Tembo, and other tag-alongs, all have one thing in common; they are Hichilema’s useful “obliGOATary” idiots! They represent the cast of a slapstick comedy that portrays a nearly extinct Billy Goat misleading other goats (that pretend to be sheep) away from green pastures to parched barren land,” Chanda stated.

He stated that all the said opposition leaders had poor records of good governance.

“These goats are useful for nothing except that which amounts to nothing; pawns in the hands of the Billy Goat grandmaster -winner of the wooden spoon five times in a row. Whichever way they may choose to bury their heads in the sand, the fact remains that the law has guided; the Constitutional Court recently interpreted what constitutes a Presidential term. The decision of the Constitutional Court is final and cannot, therefore, be appealed against. Their attempts to cast aspersions on what constitutes a “Presidential Term” is, to put it mildly, stinking thinking! Their logic is as futile as their attempts to try to get a Billy Goat to Smile. All these people act the giddy goat in their respective political parties-they are intra party despots with poor records of good governance,” Chanda stated.

“What moral ground do they have to talk about good governance when their respective political parties are personality cults built around their individual personalities rather than principle? Take Mr Hakainde Hichilema for instance. He has institutionalised dictatorship in his party having given himself an Indefinite term. What does Hichilema have to say about the farce of his party’s constitution which has left UPND in a stunted crisis since he usurped its leadership? What does he has to say of article 70 of the UPND constitution that says: ‘A party President shall be eligible for election for an indefinite period subject to this Constitution provided that a Party President who is elected Republican President shall only serve two terms that shall run concurrently with the term of office as Republican President’.”

He questioned the morality in the stated opposition leaders to stand against the CoCourt decision.

“What about Elias Chipimo? What morality does he even have to talk about Democracy? It is ridiculous! It is nearly a decade since NAREP was established in March 2010 by Mr Chipimo and it has been a poorly performing de-facto one man show or “sole-solo- trader” ever since. Since inception, Mr Chipimo has been the “party’s” Presidential Candidate in the 2011 and 2015 General Elections in which he spectacularly failed to garner even half a percent of the Presidential vote…The sole trader nature of Mulongoti and Milupi’s one man parties as well as the comical bellyaching for attention of, Tembo and Kambwili are well documented. They are individually and collectively not worth the paper or the ink so we will leave it at that. Suffice to say they do not have any moral ground to stand on; they are goats with ulterior motives pretending to be sheep.”