Rainbow Party General Secretary Wynter Kabimba says President Edgar Lungu must be very careful with bootlickers because they will finish his ‘leather’.

In an interview with News Diggers! Kabimba warned President Lungu that the same people idolising him today would plot against him tomorrow.

He therefore urged the Head of State to tame those endorsing his candidature for 2021 because the Constitutional Court had not yet decided on the matter.

“The country must be governed on the basis of the Constitution, which is the highest law of our land and also the rule of law. And one of the basic principles in those two areas is the independence of the judiciary that if a matter is before the courts of law, people must not make comments that attempts to prejudice the outcomes of the proceedings before the courts of law. The judges must be left impartially hear a matter before them and impartially deliver a judgment. After a judgment has been delivered, it becomes a public document and you can criticize it as citizens. You are at liberty to do that. And President Lungu himself as a lawyer knows these principles. But let me also say that you know, we have lessons now in the region which we can’t ignore if you are a politician. The people that glorify you may not be the best for you. It’s a very important lesson to learn in life,” Kabimba said.

“The people that stand on [an anthill] to glorify you, they are not the best for your security tenure as president, they are your worst enemies. President [Kenneth] Kaunda would be the best person to give President Lungu a lesson in that area. How he was abandoned by the people that he had been with from the 50s in 1991. The second person that President Lungu can learn from is Robert Mugabe, just next door here, he can even go there by bus. The ZANU PF structures that endorsed Mugabe two weeks before his downfall were the same structures two weeks later that were insulting him. President Zuma is a third one. The people that were glorifying him are the people that wanted to impeach him in parliament if he had not resigned a few hours before the impeachment. Seizer in Scheck spear was killed by the same people that put him into power, they are the ones that assassinated him.”

He warned President Lungu to be weary of bootlickers.

“You have to be careful when you are in power about those that want to stand on anthills and glorify you and idolize you. They are your worst enemies for your stay in power. They are the ones that do not love you. Because the same people that are today saying ‘Ni Lungu chabe for 2021’ if Lungu loses, they will be in the next political party that will form government. We call them in Rainbow party ‘professional defectors’. They can even defect to a political party [which is] not yet formed. They suffer from a defection syndrome. So what makes you think that in 2021 when you are no longer President, they will not defect to another political party, which will be in power? Surely these are very simple lessons to learn, you don’t even need a professor in history or a rocket scientist,” said Kabimba.

“Even if they call themselves bootlickers to lick your boots, you should tell them that you will end up finishing the leather because instead of licking now, they will finish the leather and what are you going to wear? And as Rainbow Party, we have said we don’t want professional defectors because we know them. They defected in huge numbers to UPND during the run up to 2016 elections [and] HH didn’t win the elections. And they are still defecting. So it shows you hat this crop of human beings has no value to your political organization. That is a lesson I leant myself having been secretary general in PF and now leading a political party. They are have no value to your political party, they just bring their personal interest.”