Rainbow Party general secretary Wynter Kabimba says the recent Economic Intelligence Unit (EIU) report which predicted victory for the ruling Patriotic Front is bullsh*t.

And Kabimba says President Edgar Lungu’s statement that a buyer for Konkola Copper Mines will be picked by July when the matter is still active in court shows there are lapses in the separation of powers.

Recently, the EIU June 2019 report predicted that President Lungu was poised to win the 2021 elections because the opposition had lost its way since the last election. This prediction invoked excitement in government and ruling party officials.

But in an interview, Kabimba said he could describe the report as a sham and as bullsh*t.

“Don’t trust them. They’re just bullshit, sorry, for a lack of a better term,” Kabimba said.

“Don’t trust them, see all these articles written in the EIU you will find they have no names. Kindly be on the lookout for that. It is just an article with a headline, then an article, because they are written from guys that are here. They fact that it says that the EIU report is not what makes it credible. It’s all a new colonial mentality that we think that a publication which is done in London is more credible than what News Diggers write. All this is just a new colonial thing that has been put in our minds that what comes from Europe is better than what News Diggers write.”

He recalled that the EIU had wrongly predicted that Rupiah Banda would beat Michael Sata in 2010.

“In 2011, the Economic Intelligence Unit issued three articles, one in February 2010 that MMD was going to win the elections in 2011. The next report if I can remember was in August 2010 predicting that MMD was going to win the 2011 elections and in June the following year, they issued another article that MMD will win the 2021 elections. I issued a statement as PF secretary general then, I said ‘this is an imperialist publication which just wants to prejudice the minds of Zambian people’. And I said that time that ‘there is no way that MMD is going to win the 2011 presidential and general elections. The EIU is a sham’ that’s the statement I issued. Did MMD win the election? No they didn’t. If the media followed these statements you can go back to that and say this is what they said in 2010 and 2011 and they were wrong,” Kabimba said.

“This a sham of an article, all these things are arranged by western countries depending on who they want to get out and whom they want to get it. For me as a student of history and a left wing politician, I know how these guys operate, they can’t cheat me. You need to see through their schemes.”

And Kabimba said the pronouncement by President Lungu that a KCM buyer will soon be concluded within a month showed the lapses in the separation of powers.

When asked if the President’s statement undermined the the separation of powers between the three arms of government, Kabimba said; “Yes, that is the word actually, not only the separation of power but it undermines the proceedings that are in court.”

He said it was unfortunate that a Head of State could not be cited for contempt.

“It is unfortunate that the President cannot be liable to any criminal or civil prosecution. You can’t cite him for contempt. But the problem that you have is that you already have a statement issued by KCM. The statement from KCM should have been, ‘the statement by the President is prejudicing the proceedings in court and making us as defendants feel that we won’t have a fair trial in this matter’. That is the statement I expected from KCM, not just saying that KCM is not for sale, no we have not reached that stage yet,” said Kabimba.

“The stage where we are is that the matter is still in court and the court as an impartial tribunal must be given an opportunity to adjudicate on that matter in an impartial way and nobody including the President of the Republic of Zambia has powers or authority to prejudice those proceedings. And that is what that statement from President Lungu is doing. It removes away from those proceedings the element of a fair hearing on the part of KCM and that the proceedings will be impartial.”