FORGET ABOUT INTER-PARTY DIALOGUE - ZDDM

THE much-talked about inter-party dialogue is a non-starter in Zambia because of the emergence of some political parties whose sole aim is to grab power, a spokesperson for the Zambia Direct Democracy Movement (ZDDM) has said

The spokesperson said in Lusaka yesterday that unlike in the past when Zambia had a crop of serious political parties, now there were opposition parties who only dreamed about State House.

“In the past we had serious political parties who were able to sit at the same table to discuss national issues with total concern about the future of the country,

“But we now we have some opposition parties which have popped up like popcorn’ whose only interest is getting into power by all means,” he said

He said even if the meeting was called, many such political parties had nothing to offer and would find excuses to raise antagonistic issues to justify their possible walk out to capture newspaper headlines the following day.

“The main problem facing Zambia and indeed its politics is that politics have been commercialized. Highly questionable characters with highly questionable sources of huge amounts of money have turned it into a business venture where they could invest and expect to reap back once in power,” he said

He further explained that before independence and up the late 90s Zambians formed NGOs and joined politics to serve the country but the situation was not same today.

He said that crop of self-scarifying” leaders seemed to have been systematically cleared and replaced by foreign sponsored ones whose agenda was to wrestle power by all means for their masters.

“This new crop of political leaders have turned politics into witchcraft because all they are good at is character assassination and demonizing fellow political leaders especially those in government ,

“They lack a sense or spirit of nationalism and patriotism hence their failure to address real issues affecting the lives of the people,” he said

He said ZDDM feared for the future of Zambia because the current culture of insults and demonizing fellow leader was taking the country nowhere.

It was ZDDM wish to bring all the nationalist parties with national interest at heart together to defend Zambia from this crop of foreign sponsored parties which threatened to plunge the country into further confusion and possible bloodshed