Former home affairs minister Colonel Panji Kaunda says endorsing President Edgar Lungu as the PF’s sole candidate for the 2021 general election will disadvantage other candidates who wish to challenge him.

In an interview, Col Kaunda, who is First President Dr Kenneth Kaunda’s son, said the central committee should not have endorsed President Lungu before the general conference.

“They are going against the Constitution of the party. The Constitution states that the party must hold a conference and endorse him at the general conference. Let them go through the constitution and go through that formality and hold it! There might be others who would want to contest maybe disadvantaged, so they must be given a chance to contest,” Col Kaunda said.

And Col Kaunda noted that elections were unpredictable.

“The people are the ones to decide. No one knows as far as it comes to elections… Elections are like football, you can’t tell who is going to win. It’s the people to decide who is going to win. So they will judge the performance of the party. If the people are not happy with what they are doing, they will not vote for them, if they are happy they will vote for them. That is it about elections no one knows,” he said.

Meanwhile, Col Kaunda asked citizens to be confident of the work being done by investigative wings in the country.

“You know, we must have confidence in our institutions unless they prove otherwise. As far as I am concerned, I have confidence in the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), Drug Enforcement Commission (DEC) and in the Police, it is up to them to prove us wrong. We must have confidence in our institutions and if they are not doing their job, there are ways and means of putting them right. The trouble is that we just keep quiet as citizens and stand by the fence, let us get involved in governance,” said Col Kaunda.