‘IMPEACHMENT MOTION BOGUS’
… “UPND using surrogates to revive issue.”
THE UPND is attempting to revive the bogus impeachment motion against President Edgar Lungu is aimed at diverting attention from their own failures, Edwin Lifwekelo has charged.
Speaking to the Daily Nation, Mr. Lifwekelo, who is the founding PF secretary general, said the UPND dreaded the very idea of meeting President Lungu in the 2021 elections because they were political weaklings.
He said the UPND were now plotting to revive the impeachment motion and creating an impression that President Lungu would be going for a third term if he stands next year because they knew they were headed for an embarrassing defeat.
“The UPND is now talking about the impeachment motion because they see that as their only survival. They are damn scared of President Lungu that the very idea of meeting him in the 2021 elections sends shivers down their spines hence the desperation and we are not surprised.
“What is shocking is that even after the courts made it clear that President Lungu is eligible to stand in 2021, they are now sponsoring some of their surrogates to link his candidature in the 2021 election to an illegitimate third term bid but this is an attempt in futility because he will stand,” Mr. Lifwekelo said.
He said it was shocking that the very political party imbued in dictatorship was the one that wanted to sound more constitutionally enlightened yet their leader had become a wamuyayaya by abrogating his party constitution with impunity.
He said he supported a private motion moved by Chifubu constituency MP, Frank Ng’ambi that sought to limit the number of times a presidential candidates could contest an election as that was the only way political parties like the UPND would have intra party democracy.
“I was part of UPND and I know that the constitution which restricted office bearers to two terms (10 years) was amended in 2015 just to accommodate Mr. Hichilema.
“If it was not changed, he would not have stood and would have been history by now in politics, but using his few fellow selfish accomplices, he used the short-cut instead of a convention to cling on to power,” he explained.
He said UPND lacked intra party democracy because “Mr Hichilema has absolute powers like a king” and that it was sheer hypocrisy and political naivety for the party to call President Lungu a dictator when the PF was going for a national convention before the 2021 election.