UPND Alliance member Kelvin Bwalya Fube says the COVID-19 is not the reason why police keep blocking UPND president Hakainde Hichilema from going to certain areas, arguing that it is their ploy to keep President Edgar Lungu in office this election.

And Fube says Zambians will cry and regret if they decide to vote back the PF into office.

In an interview, Fube said the police had now become a cadre force under Inspector General of Police Kakoma Kanganja.

“The first thing you must understand about the PF and the police basically is that they are acting illegal. The police command under the auspices of Kanganja has become totally unprofessional. It has been turned into a cadre force. I know that there are a lot of PF chaps who are cadres who have been infused into the police force. I do know that Kanganja is scared for his job, so he is not being professional. This whole thing of trying to block, intimidate, and teargas the UPND Alliance leader Hakainde Hichilema is not about the fight for COVID or the lives of Zambians. It is about the fight for survival of Edgar Chagwa Lungu as an individual,” Fube said.

“He has intimidated Kanganja into believing that without him he has no life. That is the problem. Now, Kanganja is also breathing fire on his commissioners in the various provinces, to be seen that he is doing something, when he knows deep down his heart that what he is doing is unprofessional and it is uncalled for during an election period such as this.”

Fube said the police actions were an indication that President Lungu was panicking.

“We shall not be intimidated by that one. We know their tactics, their tactic is that they want to infuse as many attacks as possible so that they lead this country to a brink where we lose our cool and our cadres also lose their cool and then there is a fracas. And the army is on standby to come and say ‘no there is a problem, the army must move in’. When you add those two, the answer is very simple, Edgar Chagwa Lungu is panicking, he is scared. He understands that he has lost this election, he has lost power, now he is trying to cling on. Now it is up to the Zambian people whether or not they will allow him to do that,” Fube said.

“We in the alliance are resolved, we don’t want that. That is why wherever we are going, we see that they have got cadres who they have hired to try and cause confusion. To destabilize the process which is peaceful and then when they attack the UPND, they overrun. Right now, the PF in numbers are being overrun, that is the problem. UPND Alliance members are merely trying to protect and defend themselves and defend their leaders. We are also aware that they have bought a lot of UPND regalia, they are trying to dress up their people who they are trying to send to the Southern Province. They know that it is a stronghold and also Western Province to try and cause confusion there, and pretend to be UPND, so that people begin to fight. They want to block all the strongholds and stop our campaigns, but it won’t work.”

He insisted that the UPND Alliance was aware of the PF’s plan to rig elections.

“These chaps, their first intention was to unleash these vuvuzelas, to go and start talking about tribalism, the people have rejected that message completely. We can’t be talking about tribe now, ubupuba! Now they have no message on the economy. I have just come back from a four-day tour of the Copperbelt, the miners are complaining, they are starving. Miners are resolved, whether they give them these funny payments they want to give them in instalments or not, the PF must go! The only option they have now is to disrupt peaceful elections or rig the elections, we are aware of their schemes,” Fube said.

“But let me say that those who are trying to perpetrate the rigging, they must understand that Chagwa Lungu is immune. Some of the instructions he is giving them are verbal, them they are not immune. We shall follow them because we must begin to prosecute people who are affecting the democratic process. That is like trying to put someone who is not supposed to be a leader into leadership, it is treason! It is a crime! One of these people must go to prison. No procession of the PF is being followed by the police, no procession of the PF is being teargassed. What they are trying to do is make it seem like everywhere the UPND are going there is violence, which is wrong! It is an impression they want to create but the people are seeing through the smokescreen.”

Meanwhile, Fube said Zambians would cry and regret if they decided to vote back the PF into office.

“We are appealing to the Zambians to understand that within the next few days, their decision is clear because if they make a mistake and become careless and purport to vote the PF back into office, it is them who are going to be crying! They shall cry and regret! So, it is up to them. Abena Zambians should liberate themselves against the shackles of this dictatorship that is emerging now. I never thought that this guy who I had assisted to get into office had this character, I never thought that Lungu can behave like this. I don’t know if we were taught the same constitutional law, because now it is clear that he is going to cling on to power at all costs,” said Fube.