‘C/wealth-led talks waste of resources’

… Third Liberation Movement dialogue says dialogue will flop because key stakeholders sidelined

THE Commonwealth-led dialogue process is just a waste of resources because both UPND and PF are just doing it for show, says opposition Third Liberation Movement party leader, Enock Tonga.

And the Zambia Centre for Inter-party Dialogue (ZCID) has charged that the dialogue and reconciliation process will flop because the Commonwealth has insisted on side-lining key stakeholders from the process.

ZCID spokesperson Edwin Sakala told the Daily Nation yesterday that Commonwealth envoy Professor Ibrahim Gambari was insisting on leading deliberations for the reconciliation process because Britain wanted to find a loophole to get UPND leader Hakainde Hichilema in Government using the back door. In a separate interview with the Daily Nation, Mr Tonga said his party did not subscribe to the dialogue process as it was only centred on two political parties which are the Patriotic Front and the United Party for National Development (UPND).

Mr Tonga said the meeting would not yield any positive results other than waste the country’s resources.He said the country had the capacity to deal with its own problems without inviting foreignbased organisations.

“We do not subscribe to this so-called dialogue which is more centred on two individuals, that is President Lungu and Mr Hakainde Hichilema. Worse still, it is being spearheaded by a foreign hand.

“We would like to strongly advise the Commonwealth that Zambia remains a sovereign state. Therefore, she has enough men and women to handle her own internal affairs,” Mr Tonga said.

Mr Tonga advised the UPND leader to stop crying for power which he cannot have at the moment. And Mr. Sakala accused the Commonwealth of being dishonest and that it should not be entrusted to spearhead the talks because it had already shown interest and biasness towards the UPND, an indication that change of regime was what motivated it to unceremoniously takeover the process.

He insisted that Zambia’s internal affairs must be dealt with by local organs responsible for such and that since independence, the country had never failed to handle its challenges even among political parties, adding that ZCID had done exceptionally well in fostering peace among players each time a disagreement arose.