UPND functions like a cult - Kachingwe

I DOUBT if the UPND will ever go for the convention because it behaves like a cult, which believes in selections and not elections, former member, Richard Kachingwe, has said.

Speaking to the Daily Nation yesterday, Major Kachingwe said even if the UPND went to the convention today, the leaders would still be selected rather than elected because there was no intra-party democracy in the party.

He charged that everything in the UPND as started and ended with Mr. Hichilema.

“I strongly doubt if the UPND will ever go to the convention before the 2021 elections because they are like a cult which believes in selections and not elections and that makes the so-called party leaders vulnerable because they are at the mercy of Mr. Hichilema,” said Maj. Kachingwe.

He said, “If you go to UPND today and ask anyone if there is any member from the party structures who has been elected in the past five years, you will find none. If by any chance they hold a convention, they will only be going there to select office bearers and not to elect them.”

He said it would be suicidal for Zambia to vote the UPND into power because the nation would be a dictatorship.

“I shudder to think what would happen if UPND came into power. I don’t think we can have any semblance of democracy left because a political party which does not believe in intra-party democracy cannot enhance inter-party and national democracy,” said Maj. Kachingwe.

He said, “This is the reason why the inter-party dialogue failed because there is no democracy in political parties like the UPND. I have been praying for the enactment of the Political Parties Bill so that dictatorial political parties can be subjected to intra- party processes.”

He said the enactment of the Political Parties

Bill would also tackle the increasing problem of briefcase political parties.

“The government must speed up the Political Party’s Bill so that political parties can be better governed.

It will stop the mushrooming of all these WhatsApp political parties where nonentities can wake up, form a political party, and start insulting respectable people whom they have never even met,” Maj. Kachingwe said.