NDC faction president Saboi Imboela says political violence being exhibited by PF and UPND is an indication that the country is headed for danger.

In an interview, Wednesday, Imboela said political violence needed to be controlled as it would not only affect the two parties, but the country at large.

“It is an indication that Zambia is headed for danger and no wonder it has to be controlled. I think the PF and the UPND have gone out of hand and I think as politicians we have repetitively said that it is very dangerous to keep allowing them to do that. When it comes to violence there is no winner because whoever is not involved will be involved. When violence erupts, it will not only be between the UPND and the PF, all of us are involved. We should look at where Rwanda is coming from and some of us had an opportunity to visit Rwanda,” Imboela said.

“We went there as many political parties, the PF and the UPND inclusive of the nine that had gone as the parties that sit on the women’s lobby. When we went to the Rwanda memorial site (Kigali Genocide Memorial) we even bought two books, all of us agreed that ‘let’s buy these books for Edgar Lungu and Hakainde Hichilema because these are the two parties that cause violence’. We bought those two books for them. So at the end of the day if they continue like this, it is very dangerous and when they announce the results, the other party will go and attack the other.

Imboela said it was unfortunate that most political parties looked at each other as enemies.

“Do you realize that during by-elections, that is what actually happens? Even the time when they announced results when I was UPND, you had to run away if you had lost because the other party would come and attack you. We can’t continue like that, even for the 2021 elections because now things have become worse. The time that this other party will be announced to have won, the other party will go and attack that party and burn things of that party,” she said.

“To them they look at each other as enemies, animals or whatever it is but when the violence erupts, all of us will be involved. They are going to kill people, burn things, destroy properties and people’s lives will be lost, all because of two political parties.”

Meanwhile, Imboela commended the Electoral Commission of Zambia for suspending political campaigns for the PF and UPND in Lusaka and other districts.

“ECZ has done very well and this is something that ECZ was supposed to be doing even before. Because even when we complain as political parties, ECZ would never do anything. For the first time, I think it is very important just to show them to say these are simple elections and the environment should be peaceful. I talked earlier about Rwanda because of where they are coming from, Rwanda has no violence, they even say that they get shocked to see political violence,” she said.

“In Rwanda there is no political violence. Two, there is no corruption and their elections are cheap. We went to find out why Rwanda has a lot of women representation in parliament. Do you know that Rwanda has the highest number of females in politics? We were meeting the women both in opposition and ruling and we were asking questions of how come they have a large number of women representations in parliament.”