UPND deputy secretary general Patrick Mucheleka says the opposition party tried to tame its former party vice-president Geoffrey Bwalya Mwamba (GBM) but he has now gone back to politics of insults.

Speaking when he featured on UNZA Radio, Monday, Mucheleka said he was embarrassed by GBM’s insulting behaviour.

“Yesterday, GBM was on Radio Mano in Kasama, what was he doing? He was busy insulting everyone; he insulted HH, he insulted me, his own nephew! He insulted our national chairman, honourable Mutale Nalumango, and Mr Benard Mpundu. Yes, you can leave the party at your own volition like he resigned, but you should not be insulting like that; you should remember the good moments you shared with colleagues you worked with. How many people are you going to insult? You will insult everyone every time you leave the party and re-join another one? He spent almost two hours just insulting, there was no point at which he spoke about the suffering of the people; he spent the whole time to talk about how bad HH is; how bad Mucheleka is! I feel embarrassed myself being a Bemba and his nephew,” Mucheleka said.

“He calls me a traitor; GBM is untameable, you can never tame him, you can’t! In UPND with myself as his nephew on the front line, we tamed him to a point where some people felt we had succeeded in rehabilitating him in the last four years. The vulgar language, the insults, had almost begun to disappear; only to reoccur! He has gone back on a totally different mode; he has gone back to his old self of insulting everyone; come on, uncle GBM! People of Zambia, are we going to agree that each time we differ politically we must be insulting one another?”

Mucheleka thanked Hichilema for not responding to GBM’s insults.

“I am very grateful to president HH for not having uttered even a single word; he has not said anything apart from wishing him well. He spent the whole time yesterday insulting HH and all of us, I think even those in PF, I am sure they are also wondering; is this kind of politics we want? I refuse! And I hope this is the last time you are asking me about GBM; ask me about how UPND in government intends to address peoples’ challenges,” Mucheleka said.

He said GBM ditched UPND because he refused to work with NDC leader Chishimba Kambwili.

“One of the reasons GBM decided to leave perhaps was that, he could not stomach the fact that the Opposition Alliance opened up its doors to allow NDC; Kambwili’s party to be part of the Alliance. That did not go so well with him; he decided to leave. According to him, Kambwili had insulted him too much such that he could not sit on the same table with Kambwili. What he was forgetting was that he is a guru of insults in the political arena; GBM himself! Hasn’t he been insulting President Lungu? How has President Lungu accepted him, although I have read they have not yet accepted him fully; didn’t he insult President Lungu? Hasn’t he insulted everyone? When he was in PF he caused cadres in Kasama to beat up HH and later Honourable Request Muntanga, but HH still accepted him and appointed him as running mate. So, what is it that GBM has against Kambwili that he can’t forgive? Is it because of the PF propaganda that HH was preparing Kambwili to be running mate? He was saying Kambwili told him that ‘Kapoli ni Kapoli’ (a pig is a pig), but surely, but surely your behaviour must be able to show that you are a grown up man, you must respect other people,” argued Mucheleka.

“When you insult, you must know that you are not the only who can insult, but we must be able to reconcile and work together to develop this country. This is why we decided to get into an alliance so that we build the unity of purpose. What broke the camel’s back; what GBM could not accept was that we refused not to put a candidate in Roan and decided to work with NDC and we won, GBM could not stomach that, he wanted us to lose! But we said ‘no, we are looking at the bigger picture’.”