In this video, Zimbabwe’s opposition leader Tendai Biti says recent political events in Zambia are retrogressive.

Biti, the president of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and current chairman of the coalition for democrats in Zimbabwe, said he was in Zambia to stand in solidarity with HH.

“I have arrived here this morning with a team of officials from the PDP to express our solidarity with president HH (Hakainde Hichilema) who is a personal friend of mine and also the democratic and peace-loving Zambians in what we consider a very difficult and trying time for Zambia. We’ve always considered Zambia as a country that has gone through its own transitions and those transitions have been successful,” Biti, who served as Zimbabwe’s Minister of Finance from February 2009 to September 2013, told journalists at Taj Pamodzi Hotel in Lusaka today.

“The most important transition that Zambia went through was the transition from the liberation movement of UNIP led by president Kenneth Kaunda into the era of MMD under president Chiluba, later on president Mwanawasa, later on president Banda and very importantly the power transfer between the MMD to president Sata.”

Biti said it was regrettable that Zambia was now known for the wrong reasons.

“So recent events, we find them very retrogressive, we find them as a reversal of the progressive gains that Zambia has made over the years. We find it regrettable that suddenly Zambia is now known for the wrong reasons; the banning of ‘political’ newspapers, the incarceration of opposition political leaders, the imposition of a [threatened] state of emergency, the ejectment of African leaders and visitors in your country. We think that is unacceptable and we pray that Zambians go back to their natural DNA which is a DNA of love, a DNA of solidarity,” he said.