Democratic Party leader Harry Kalaba says time for the PF government to go has come, whether they use police or not, because Zambians have suffered enough.
And Kalaba says President Edgar Lungu has continued to issue instructions to the police to cancel the Democratic Party’s rallies because he fears that the PF’s influence in its strongholds will diminish.
Speaking to journalists in Samfya, Luapula Province, Saturday, after police cancelled his party’s planned vision launch, Kalaba regretted the incident, but said the PF was a tired party on its way out of power after next year.
“PF has been bragging that Luapula Province is their stronghold. We have demonstrated to them that it can never be their stronghold for as long as the DP is around! Now they know who is who. We are the big boys in Luapula! We are the big boys in Northern! We are the big boys everywhere and people have come to accept that DP is the only way to go. This is the reality and you know that money is not the ultimate in politics; you can have money; money can buy hands, but not the heart. The people of Zambia have suffered enough and there is nothing the PF will do whether they use the police or not, the PF is going! PF is a tired party and it has got no space in the current politics that we are doing right now,” Kalaba said.
And the former Foreign Affairs Minister complained that what transpired in Samfya where he, together with other poor Zambians were teargassed by police under the instructions from President Edgar Lungu, was barbaric, inhuman and only fit for the animal kingdom.
“What happened in Samfya is very regrettable! It is sad that we can be witnessing such days in the 21st century; just a few days ago, we were celebrating 55 of independence. Just two weeks ago, we were having the prayers and reconciliation of our country and to see what we witnessed today in Samfya was quite barbaric, inhuman and only fit for the animal kingdom! I am telling the PF that swallow your pride. Let us show you how politics are done. We did not come here to play. You are going whether you like it or not,” vowed Kalaba.
“What we have gathered is that Edgar Lungu is the one who gave those instructions because one of the police officers told us that President Lungu himself had directed that the rally should not go on and that if we went on with it, Chisha, the Luapula Province Police Commissioner was going to be sacked because he [President Lungu] didn’t want to be embarrassed by the growing popularity of DP in the province,” said Kalaba.