Patriots for Economic Progress president Sean Tembo says political violence thrives in the country because it is allowed by the President.
Meanwhile, Tembo says Zambians would be jumping from the frying pan to the fire by voting the UPND into office.
Speaking when he appeared on UNZA Radio’s Lusaka Star Program, Tuesday, Tembo observed that the PF was benefiting from political violence
“I think political violence is regrettable. In this day and age, I think people have to fight on the basis of ideas and not physically fighting, that’s very uncivilized for people to reduce themselves to exchange punches. However, I must emphasize that most of this breakdown in the rule of law is being perpetuated by the ruling party, the Patriotic Front because you must understand that if the police wanted they would end political violence overnight…So political violence is not the problem in Zambia, it’s something the PF are holding in their hands, if they want they can squeeze it and crush it overnight. If they want, there can be no single incident of political violence in the country but they decide not to. So to me as far as I am concerned, every time there is an incident of political violence whether it is the case of those politicians who were attacked at 5 FM or those people who were hacked at Leopards Hill cemetery, I think that’s all in the hands of the Patriotic Front and when I say the Patriotic Front, I mean the republican president because he is the one who has the power to instruct the police to say you know what, we are not going to interfere with your law enforcement just do your job, whoever breaks the law, arrest them, prosecute them,” Tembo said.
“As far as I am concerned, any person who dies from political violence in this country, the blood is on the hands of the President because it is the president who allows political violence to take place.”
Meanwhile, Tembo says street vending should not be banned but that it should be well regulated to ensure sanity on the streets.
“Street vending has to be allowed in Lusaka as well as other towns but it needs to be properly regulated. now the trouble we have with our government is that they are quite very poor when it comes to thinking, so instead of them sitting done and thinking to say ok how do we regulate this street vending, how many vendors can we allow in Chachacha road, how many can we allow in Lumumba road, how many can we allow in Cairo road, instead of them sitting down and doing that analysis, it is too much work for them, they don’t like to think. So instead what they resort to is let’s kick out the street all vendors from the streets, that’s not tenable, it has an adverse impact on the economy, it has an adverse impact on the welfare of our people at the end of our people.”
Meanwhile, Tembo said the UPND was more incompetent than the PF.
“And I must emphasize that as a country, we have been changing governments. We changed from UNIP to MMD and from MMD to PF but this has not translated into any significant social and economic welfare of our people. So going forward now my appeal is that the Zambian people must not just focus on changing government, yes we know the PF is incompetent but we shouldn’t rush and bring in another even more incompetent political party, we shouldn’t rush. For example, in my view, the UPND is far much more incompetent political party and it would be jumping from the frying pan to the fire if we were to the put UPND in power. So my appeal to Zambians is that as we want to change government, the PF has failed there is no question about it, but even as we want to change the PF, let’s put a competent government there and what we are saying is that a PEP government will be that competent government,” said Tembo.
