NKEYEMA UPND member of parliament Kapelwa Mbangweta says there is no basis to re-elect PF at next year’s general election because they failed to solve the country’s economic crisis.

On Sunday, PF media director Sunday Chanda said the UPND and its leader Hakainde Hichilema would fall harder next year following the general election because they had lost grip of Western and North-Western provinces.

But in an interview, Mbangweta wondered why PF would want to hang on to power when they had failed to deliver to Zambians’ expectations.

“For nine years, the PF have run down the economy on their own to the extent that, now, they are failing to honour their obligations. Have they told us how they are going to take us out of this quagmire? They haven’t, they are failing to give us hope. If they are failing to give us hope why should they hang on to leadership, what is the basis? There is no point! What the people of Zambia want is to say, ‘now that we have got into this problem, how do we come out of it?’ Why would the Zambian people vote back the PF? They have brought so much misery. Under the first president (Kenneth) Kaunda, they were not decayed but they could give you hope. In the case of PF what hope are they giving us? This country has never got into this problem for 56 years. And morally why would they want to come back into power? To continue doing what? To continue spoiling? Zambians will not allow them to do that,” said Mbangweta.

“In Western Province, they failed to do the mobile registration, which other governments have done. They want to disenfranchise other people to stop them from voting and then they want to come back, why are they so preoccupied with that? Who is going to vote for them? If the PF are performing, they don’t need to be worried about coming back to power. All they need to do is to deliver, but their activities show us that they have failed to deliver. It is based on this value which will make PF lose. Does it make sense that I should vote for somebody who has put me in trouble? President Edgar Lungu has failed to tell the country how we are going to come out of this debt. Other presidents in this country used to engage the public when there were issues of this nature, but we have never had a bigger problem like this when no one has come to tell us how they’re going take us out of this. And they are preoccupied about coming back in 2021, what for? Are we imbeciles that we can’t see what is happening?”

In a statement, Sunday, Chanda had argued that the grassroots election losses suffered by the UPND were a sign that they had lost the old claimed hegemony in the two provinces.

“As the grassroots continue to speak, both through the ballot as well as through the unending streams of mass defections from the UPND structures and ordinary members; the signs are all-too clear that HH and his UPND will fall harder in 2021. This is because the UPND’s old claimed hegemony in North-Western and Western provinces no longer stands given the grassroots election losses suffered by the UPND over a long period now…The grassroots have spoken, and shall emphatically do so again in 2021 that: All they want is shared peace, national unity, and the visible development the ruling Patriotic Front is implementing; what they do not want, however, is the alternative being offered by HH and his UPND, namely; insults, divisiveness, bitterness, tribalism and regionalism, and as a result, underdevelopment! Therefore, for HH and his UPND, 2021, it is a case of ‘things fall apart,’ to borrow the words of a great African writer (Chinua Achebe). We are, therefore, calling on all patriotic Zambians to ensure they register to vote – and vote for development in 2021!” stated Chanda.