PF national mobilisation chairperson Richard Musukwa says in the unlikely event UPND opposition president Hakainde Hichilema is elected into power, he will turn out to be Zambia’s worst dictator.

In an interview, Musukwa charged that Hichilema would put the country on fire if elected Zambia’s seventh Republican President due to his “dictatorial characteristics.”

“To say that, ‘from independence, a person who can only transform Zambia is HH’ is misplaced, it is cheap, it is myopic! He has never been in government so he doesn’t know what is inside. He thinks he can just be shouting and giving instructions like at his farm or company? A country is organised and run by statutes. From what he is saying, he can be the worst dictator in the unlikely event because he thinks that everything starts and revolves around him. Running a country is team work, it is not about running a home or running a business, which you have been operating at the disadvantage of Zambians. Running a country is humility, running a country is inclusive,” Musukwa argued.

“The Presidency needs a lot of power. Where President Edgar Lungu sits, he holds a lot of power, you need a leader who is humble and self-restraint. Not that kind of propensity we see from his pride and arrogance in HH, he will put the country on fire! And as PF, we welcome his candidature because we have defeated him before and we will repeatedly do it because nothing has changed from the last time we defeated him. We are very prepared. And I want to ask all our rank and file across the Republic of Zambia to begin to ensure that we forget about positions. For now, PF and its members are preoccupied in ensuring that we retain power and ensuring that we vote for President Lungu in a landslide victory then we can share the power and positions. Because when President Lungu is at the helm, we are confident that he is a people’s person and he will look after everybody.”

Musukwa, who is also Chililabombwe PF member of parliament, insisted that the ruling party was adequately prepared to relegate Hichilema to the country’s political archives after defeating him at the August 12 polls.

“We are not surprised by Hichilema in whatever form emerging their preferred candidate. We knew and we have always known. We have always prepared ourselves very adequately to ensure that this time around, we defeat him hands down in order to send him to the political archives! As you can see from his rantings, Hichilema is full of himself! His biggest source of his downfall is self-pride and pomposity. There is no single person who can transform this country. This country can only be transformed by Zambians working together. There is no intelligent person who can fix and control things by himself, like the way he wants to portray. The Presidency is about teamwork, it’s like a coach mobilising teams that will be able to transform the country and that is what His Excellency, the President, Edgar Chagwa Lungu, has been doing. To mobilise a team that speaks to the sustainability of our developmental trajectory is the preoccupation of President Edgar Lungu,” said Musukwa.

“The preoccupation of HH is State House and there can be no better reasons to always want to be in State House to use it as a conduit of business with multinational companies who want to exploit Zambia’s resources at the exclusion of Zambians.”