PF deputy campaign manager Given Lubinda says the country has endorsed President Edgar Lungu to continue being Head of State for another five years.

And Lubinda says UPND president Hakainde Hichilema always predicts winning the presidential election but ends up losing.

In an interview, Lubinda boasted that PF’s 2021 campaign plan was the most structured in the ruling party’s history.

“The PF has covered the whole country, we have had a very structured campaign, it has never been so structured before. Speaking as a man with a lot of experience in Presidential campaigns, remember that I was involved in president Anderson Mazoka’s first attempt at the Presidency in 2001. I was involved in the campaign for Michael Chilufya Sata in 2006, I was managing Michael Chilufya Sata’s campaign in 2008, I was involved in the campaign in 2011. I was involved in the Presidential campaign in 2015 and 2016. I can tell you that there has never been a better structure,” Lubinda said.

“This campaign has been very well structured. It is a campaign where what the top is saying has been [in] consonance with what the ‘bottomers’ are saying. Because we have a very well-written manifesto, which was very well explained, everybody is singing from the same page of the hymn book, without any contradiction.”

Lubinda said people were happy with the selection of President Lungu as the PF candidate in next week’s general elections.

“We are very proud that we are one political party that went around campaigning without being engaged in any form of violence. We are very happy that we are coming to the close of the campaign period without us getting involved in the destruction of property. I am the campaign manager for [the] running mate and the deputy campaign manager for the whole campaign, I am very satisfied and very appreciative of the feedback we have been getting on the ground. Wherever we have gone, people have endorsed especially President Edgar Chagwa Lungu. In the many places we have gone, people have been happy with the selection of our candidate,” he said.

“The last one week, really for us it’s just to encourage people to turn out to vote and to give confidence to the people that they must not be worried about the other people who are trying to use anarchy and violence as a way of discouraging people not to vote. That is what we are doing in the last one week. As a campaign manager, I have to thank his Excellency, the President, for his decision to allow the defence wings of government to beef up security in the country. He has made a very good decision. That is like him; he is a very visionary person. What he has done is very important to avert any strife in the country.”

Lubinda claimed that some opposition leaders were “demon-possessed” and required spiritual healing.

“We know there are people who seem to be demon-possessed that wherever they go, the devil also follows them and causes bloodletting. Wherever they appear, the demon also follows them and causes people to fight. Now such demonic spirits require spiritual healing and therefore I salute all clergy who are praying for the country,” he said.

And commenting on Hichilema’s remarks that the PF must be removed from government because they had made Zambians suffer, Lubinda said Hichilema always predicted that he would win elections despite losing all the time.

“He has said that six times before, is it the first time he is saying it? No! He has said it before. I want to say that if indeed he is a realist, this is the last time he is going to say that. He has said it five times before. He said it in 2006, he said it in 2008, he said it in 2011, he said it in 2015, he said in 2016, what differences does it make for him to say it again? He can say it as many times as he wishes, history will repeat itself. Had it been somebody who has not said it before, I would have paid attention. But not a person who has said it five times before. He has said it five times and what has happened to what he has said? Nothing! Even now he can say whatever he wants, nothing will happen,” Lubinda said.

“On stealing of votes, again he has said that before but has he ever produced evidence? The last time he said that in 2016, he even went to court, when the court asked him to produce evidence, did he produce it? He didn’t produce it, even now he can say whatever he wants. You know people who are used to losing also develop a strategy on how to defend themselves. They know how to create excuses that we have rigged elections before people have voted. He can say it as many times as he wishes and that is not a problem for us. Even now he is already crying wolf that there is a wolf outside the door, yet there is just a small puppy.”