UPND PLANNING TO RIG 2026 ELECTIONS, SAYS SEAN TEMBO
SEAN Tembo, the Patriots for Economic Progress (PeP) president has claimed that UPND does not care about the suffering and outcry of the people because the party has a plan to rig the 2026 election.
But UPND deputy secretary general Gertrude Imenda has denied the allegations and said her members were not riggers.
During the Hot Seat Radio Programme, Mr Tembo said Zambia had moved from bad to worse.
He alleged that the UPND had a plan to rig the 2026 elections but it is not something that was insurmountable as Zambians would overcome.
“It doesn’t matter how well President Hakainde Hichilema thinks he has got everything plotted and how he will ensure that he remains wamuyaya (life President) of Zambia. It doesn’t matter. He will go,” Mr Tembo said.
He said even other Presidents who were there before had a perfect plan to hang on to power and thought they would be in power for ever.
“Others wanted to go for a third term, some wanted to do all sorts of things but they failed,” he said
Mr Tembo said no matter how well-crafted President Hichilema’s plan was to hijack the democracy of the country, and turn it into a dictatorship, it would not work.
“His plans to turn Zambia into a dictatorship so that he becomes wamuyaya won’t work. Not in Zambia. Maybe he draws some inspiration from dictators he meet when he goes for international meetings and he believes it can work in Zambia,” he said.
Mr Tembo said if President Hichilema does not get the requisite number of votes in 2026, he will be kicked out and if he resisted, he will be arrested and bundled out.
But Ms Imenda, laughed off Mr Tembo’s allegations.
Ms Imenda said UPND won the 2021 election overwhelmingly without rigging and its members did not even know how it was done.
She said UPND is democratic and believed in democratic tenets. “So ivi ova rigging is not our specialty. We don’t rig,” Ms Imenda said.
She said Mr Tembo got zeros in the 2021 election and wondered why he talked about rigging. “So if there was rigging in 2021, it was not us,” Ms Imenda said.
She said President Hichilema listened to the cries of the people and it was the reason he had put in place measures to improve the economy.