People’s Alliance for Change (PAC) president Andyford Banda says the ruling Patriotic Front does not have enough time to turn around Zambia’s economy because they are on the verge of being pushed out of power.

Last week, PF national mobilisation committee chairperson Richard Musukwa said the party would focus on its manifesto of improving the living standards of people and job creation to enable the ruling party retain power in 2021.

“I wanted to first of all emphasise the Christmas present that we have for the people of Zambia is to ensure that PF is re-organised, re-energised, [and] re-boosted in terms of getting the new vibes for 2021 (in terms) of the elections that are going be conducted. I want to state that the values of the PF remain the culture of ensuring that the pro-poor polices of the PF are implemented in order to fight poverty; in order to ensure we create jobs; in order to ensure we give a platform to our people across the country,” said Musukwa.

“Our focus and philosophy will be to ensure that we engage stakeholders across the length and breadth of our country, the marketers, the bus drivers, the truck drivers, miners, teachers, nurses…people from all works of life in order to ensure that we retain power in 2021 and to ensure that the manifesto of PF of ensuring that we provide jobs (and) uplift the living standards of our people are fundamental to our foregoing. I wanted to quickly state that the 2021 election campaign of the PF will be anchored on statistics of numbers across the country.”

But in an interview in Lusaka, Banda wondered how the PF was going to improve citizens’ living standards in one year when they had failed in the last eight years, adding that they were on the verge of being pushed out of power.

“A straight answer is that it is not feasible because they have failed for the past…years so how are they going to do it in the next one year? I think they are living in their own world! They do not understand what is happening and truth of the matter is that I don’t think there is anyone at the moment who is willing to bring in money in this country before the elections. They should forget about the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for now. They should forget about foreign direct investments, which have dwindled for half of what we used to have,” said Banda.

“Everything is on a standstill. Look at the power crisis! They don’t have a solution. The only solution they have is to import power from South Africa. The Zambian kwacha has depreciated to its lowest and a whole lot of governance issues; they started a fight with the United States, a fight that is not necessary, a fight they cannot win. They are living in a world of their own so, for us, we know that between now and 2021, we don’t think the PF is going to do anything that is going to change people’s lives, even if they would, their time is short. They should wake up and realize that they are on the verge of being pushed out of power!”