The PF says UPND leader Hakainde Hichilema must be discarded in the dustbin of political history as a failed politician who tried to use hook and crooks tricks to become President.
And PF media director Sunday Chanda says the UPND vice president Geoffrey Bwalya Mwamba is insulting President Lungu in order to justify his relevance in the opposition party that was planning to remove him from his position.
Chanda was reacting to Hichilema’s call for members of parliament to move an impeachment motion against President Edgar Lungu in the House.
“We want to make it very clear that number one; the impeachment motion that HH is talking about should be looked at as the 6th time that he is contesting in an election in this country. When he loses the Zambian people must be ready to discard him. We must confine him to the dustbins of political history because that is where he belongs,” Chanda told News Diggers in an interview.
“What makes Mr Hichilema’s calls laughable is that in one breath he does not recognise President Lungu as republican president, and in another breath he is calling for an impeachment for the person he does not recognise to be the president. We know that he does not see those contradictions, but we know that HH does not believe he can become president through an election. He believes that by hook and crook he can find himself there, he did the same with Levy Mwanawasa, Rupiah Banda and the late Michael Sata and he is trying to do the same with President Lungu.”
He said Zambians still had a lot of confidence in the leadership of President Lungu.
“We can assure him that the Zambian people have so much confidence in this president (Edgar Lungu), and through their representatives in Parliament, that motion to be tabled by the UPND members of parliament is going to flop and he would have lost his stand and it would be his time to be confined to the dustbins of political history,” Chanda said.
And Chanda described GBM as a loose cannon who was trying to prove his relevance to his party.
“We know that he’s trying to be relevant, we know that he has to work twice as hard to maintain his position in UPND. He has to sound relevant to Hakainde Hichilema. You can be assured that in whatever statement that he makes, he is just bluffing. What they are looking for is an opportunity to claim political victimisation. How many insults have the opposition in this county showered on President Lungu? GBM will not be the first and he will not be the last. What we are not going to do is play ping pong with him because that is what he is trying to do basically to prove his political relevance to HH,” Chanda observed.
“We know that he has been under pressure that he has not been talking. The last time he spoke he insulted the poor Zambians and that did not sit well with his leader. And he has to do whatever is possible even if it means being so loose with his mouth to earn that relevance. We are not going to give him the relevance he is looking for in order to maintain his place in the UPND. We know that he is under threat, we know that there is an agenda to reject him from his position. And he has to do what he is doing to show that he is relevant.”
Meanwhile, Chanda advised NDC leader Chishimba Kambwili not to be used as a donkey or stepping stone by HH.
“We want to think that Chishimba Kambwili is wiser than Hichilema. He is wiser in the sense that he knows that HH tried to use Levy Mwanawasa, all for the purpose of drawing closer to the presidency. We know that he tried to get RB to be his vice president; we know that he tried to get president Sata into an alliance and he believed that he should have been the president and president Sata should have been his vice president. We know that HH is looking for political donkeys. Those that will take him to the presidency and we don’t know if Chishimba Kambwili is ready to be that donkey that HH is going to ride on to get to the presidency. So in that sense I’m saying that he is wiser, we don’t think he wants to present himself as a Hichilemas donkey; as a stepping stone to the presidency unless he is dumb,” said Chanda.