ADD president Charles Milupi says PF media director Sunday Chanda keeps insulting the opposition alliance because the ruling party feels its heat.

In an interview, Milupi said the alliance was made up of mature people who prioritised the interests of Zambians.

Milupi was reacting to Chanda’s remarks that the opposition alliance was comprised of UPND leader Hakainde Hichilema’s lapdogs and useful idiots.

“Sunday Chanda is getting that from his hallucination and for people like that, the Zambian people must not even look at them because they have lost integrity. Anyone who is involved with the family that swindles the poor out of the social cash transfer in any normal society, should not be listened to. We know that Sunday is playing the role of Goebbels in the Nazi Germany, the propaganda chief and the philosophy of ‘if you tell a lie often times, people are going to believe that it’s the truth’ Sunday Chanda is the Goebbels of this dictatorship government called PF,” Milupi said.

“We are getting more calls from people who are expressing interest to join the alliance despite the very manner that Chanda has been speaking about us, he has called us useful idiots, he has called us lapdogs, he has called us hyenas, what person uses such language in a country like Zambia where we say we are a Christian nation? What kind of language is that? What is happening now is that we in the opposition are the one who are exhibiting the maturity that we would ordinarily expect from the party in government. When we were young and you are in a boxing match and you see your opponents throwing wild punches, you know you have won. If you are in a football match and you see your friends doing what the bembas say ‘chipante-pante’you know you are winning that match. When you hear the way Sunday Chanda is talking today, the language he is using, then you know they have lost, but most importantly, you know that they are feeling the effectiveness of the alliance. Because if it was a none issue, they would not have bothered about it but because they can see us gathering the momentum that we have started to gather, they are feeling the heat. As of now, we will not bother very much about him because he is a small piece in the machinery of the governance of this country.”

And Milupi said the Alliance was made up of mature people who prioritised the interests of Zambians.

“The opposition alliance is made up of people who are very mature, including president HH himself and the rest of us, we are very mature and our interests lies with the interests of the nation. Our interests do not lie with any particular individual and that is why you have seen that despite the rantings of Sunday Chanda, we have restrained ourselves from engaging him because people say if you argue with a fool people will not know the difference. Why is Sunday so vicious and bitter against people who have come together for the good of this nation? Is there any law that we are breaking? There is no law that we are breaking at all. They themselves the PF are in alliances with other political parties, look at Cosmo Mumba, look at Danny Pule, look at Felix Mutati and his part of MMD, are they alone?” Milupi questioned.

“We are very specific with issues that we feel are of concern to the Zambians, among them is the lack of political space; just as an example we as an alliance made a notification to the police that we wanted to demonstrate against the wrongs that are going on in our country. We met with Lusaka province Police commissioner Nelson Phiri and he assured us that the following day he was going to give us the date, today is 18th January and we have not been given the date. The fact that we have not gone out to demonstrate is not a sign of weakness. The constraining of peoples’ rights in this country is so rife, look at the corruption and the abuse of public resources that is in this country, it is so endemic and is affecting citizens through higher taxes, through lack of employment, through higher prices of goods and services.”

Milupi insisted that the alliance had not opted to support one candidate.

“Look at the price of fuel, if you look at Malawi, they have announced that they are reducing fuel because the price of crude oil on the international market has gone down for a considerable amount. But in Zambia the fuel price is not reducing because we know which company has been given to be buying oil in Zambia and we know the people involved and as long as those people are involved, the prices will not be reduced. Because the higher the price, the more money in their pockts. These are the issues as a responsible group of politicians have come together around, we have not come together to support one candidate. In none of our meetings have we sat and agreed that now we have chose this one as the person to stand on the alliance ticket,” said Milupi.