UPND spokesperson Charles Kakoma says Patriotic Front leaders instructed their media director Sunday Chanda to discredit the African Liberal Network (ALN) because they were angry that the network exposed the country’s political situation.

And Kakoma says it was impossible for him and his colleagues who attended the General Assembly of the African Liberal Network to sign agreements to legalise homosexuality in Zambia, arguing that the issue in question was not even an agenda item of the meeting.

Kakoma explained to News Diggers in an interview yesterday that the PF were just angry and panicking after the ALN exposed the levels of abuse of human rights in Zambia and the dictatorial path that President Edgar Lungu’s regime was taking the country into.

“It is true that the PF and Mr Chanda in particular did not attend the annual general meeting of the African Liberal Network in the first place. So they cannot start discussing issues from a meeting that they did not attend. Secondly, the item on gay rights was never an agenda item for that meeting and none of the delegates to that meeting ever talked about such an issue. But what transpired was that the ALN passed a resolution on the political situation in Zambia, I think that is what could have angered the PF and so they instructed Chanda to issue such a statement,” Kakoma said.

He said the PF were panicking and had been unsettled by the resolution from the African Liberal Network (ALN) who exposed the dictatorship happening in the country, abuse of human rights and corruption under President Lungu’s tenure.

“They are just panicking because the ALN exposed the abuse of human rights in Zambia, the dictatorship that is going on in Zambia and the loss of freedoms by many Zambians and the corruption that is taking place in Zambia. So I think that resolution unsettled the PF that they are now concocting stories on gay rights. The issue of gay rights never arose and Mr [Andyford] Banda [of the People’s Alliance for Change (PAC) party] who has also issued a statement is right because he also attended that meeting, and there were only two parties from Zambia which is PAC and ourselves in the UPND. So basically, that statement from the Patriotic Front is full of lies, the PF are liars,” Kakoma said.

Meanwhile, Kakoma accused the PF of being a party of homosexuals who were funded by the fellow homosexuals world over to conduct their election campaigns.

“In Zambia, if there is any political party that is associated with homosexuals, it is PF. Even when [late President Michael] Sata was around, they are alleged to have collected money from gay groups and funded their campaign. That is well known, so they should not try to smear dirt on others when they are the ones that are in bed with homosexuals and lesbians. What Sunday Chanda was trying to do by issuing such a statement was trying to discredit the Liberal International and the African Liberal Network in particular. You see, the PF are not members of the ALN so in the first place they could not even attend the meeting we went to,” said Kakoma who also sent images of the agenda for the ALN meeting via the WhatsApp chat platform to prove that there was no truth in Sunday Chanda’s statement where he was alleging that the former and his colleagues had endorsed the promotion of homosexuality in Zambia.