UPND EXPLAINS TWO-PRONGED PLOY
…We want impeachment and dialogue - Kakoma
However, PF deputy media director Antonio Mwanza says the behavior of UPND is self-destructive in their move to impeach President Edgar Lungu when they are demanding to sit down and dialogue with him for peace. Mr Kakoma has maintained that the impeachment process has nothing to do with the Commonwealth-led dialogue and speculations that it will jeopardise the talks are misdirected. He explained that the UPND’s objective in participating in the Commonwealth-led talks was to push for an establishment of an independent electoral commission. Mr Kakoma said the UPNDs participation in the Commonwealth talks was about institutional reforms and not personalities. UPND, he said, was still willing to dialogue with other political parties despite calling for President Lungu’s impeachment as the two were separate matters. “From the dialogue, we intend to push for the establishment of an independent electoral commission, because we do not have confidence in the current one,” Mr Kakoma said. He said they were relying on some members of Parliament who were not even part of the UPND for the impeachment to be a success. The move was not entirely meant to be a success but to bring the grievances in the open. Mr Kakoma said the move to push a motion in Parliament to impeach President Lungu was not partisan. Mr Kakoma said the UPND would continue to push for the impeachment of President Lungu even if they did not succeed as the act would bring the alleged grievances to the attention of the people. “Even in South Africa, Members of parliament on several occasions moved motions in parliament to impeach President Jacob Zuma which were unsuccessful, until finally it happened and he was removed,” Mr Kakoma said. However, Mr Mwanza said the opposition party should not have taken an emotional and confrontation move to move a motion of impeachment against the President with whom they wanted to sit down and dialogue for reconciliation. “If UPND were serious with the issues of dialogue, they should have not taken this confrontational and destructive and very retrogressive path of putting up a motion of impeachment with the President whom they claim they want to sit down and dialogue with. “This vindicates what we have always said as Patriotic Front that UPND are not interested in dialogue, actually they want to use the issue of dialogue for political capital,” he said. He accused the opposition of wanting to use the process of dialogue to raise their political profile on the international scene, hence their insistence that special envoy of the Commonwealth secretary general, Gambari must chair the dialogue against allowing the Zambia Council for Interparty Dialogue (ZCID). He accused the UPND of failing to state their position on ZCID which organisation they belonged to, and have been chairing for the past few years, that “: he doesn’t want to tell people that his party sits on the ZCID, and actually chairs the organisation”. Mr Mwanza alleged that the UPND just wanted to use the international community and the Commonwealth to put undue pressure on the PF and President Lungu painting a bad picture of the country’s democratic dispensation on human rights and freedoms of speech and association.