THERE’LL BE NO ZAMBIA – Dr Musumali

THERE’LL BE NO ZAMBIA

…if Hichilema and UPND are not voted out next year – SP

• Dr Musumali questioned Hichilema and Speaker of the National Assembly Nelly Mutti’s arrogance when there is already a judgement from the Constitutional Court on the Bill 7
• Hichilema is destroying the small gains this country has made over the past years.

 By Tony Nkhoma

THERE will be no Zambia to talk bout if President Hakainde Hichilema and the United Party for National Development (UPND) are allowed another five years in 2026, Socialist Party (SP) secretary general and second vice president Dr Cosmas Musumali has warned.

Dr Musumali said Hichilema saw that the Constitutional Court was unable to come up with a judgment in his favour hence his rush to defer the “evil and infamous” Bill 7 which he wanted to change the Constitution to stay in power.

“He wants more. So we are creating a monster. Mr Hichilema and the UPND have become a liability to this country. And if this goes through, Bill 7 goes through in whichever way, if Mr Hichilema in 2026 is still given another term of office, there will be no Zambia worth talking about. He is destroying the small gains this country has made over the past years,” Dr Musumali said.

He was speaking when he featured on the Socialist Hour live programme on Hot FM Radio yesterday.

Dr Musumali said Hichilema was a manipulator for lying to Zambians that Bill 7 needed further consultations when he would have engaged stakeholders in the first place before it was drafted.

“So what does he do? He says ‘tools down. Let’s go back to the people’. He’s lying. He is not interested in the people having a chance. If he was, he would have done it from the very beginning,” he said.

Dr Musumali questioned Hichilema and the Speaker of the National Assembly Nelly Mutti’s arrogance when there was already a judgement from the Constitutional Court on the bill.

“So, there’s a judgment out there. And then he’s arrogant about the whole thing. This whole constitution process is a manipulation, and a manipulator has no respect for the people he’s trying to manipulate. If you respect people, you will not try to manipulate them,” Dr Musumali said.

He said what Hichilema was undertaking was not constitutional reform but stealing the people’s power.

“What are those changes he’s aiming at? He wants to make himself President for life. All these clauses that are limiting presidential term and so forth, they are going to be changed as soon as he gets the two-thirds majority,” Dr Musumali said.

He warned Zambians that once Hichilema succeeded, the opposition political parties and the criticism against him would be a thing of the past.

And during the same programme, SP presidential candidate Dr Fred M’membe said giving another five-year term to the UPND and Hichilema, there would be nothing remaining of Zambia because Hichilema was not fit to run Zambia.

“He talks nicely. But behind that tongue is a fang. Very poisonous. Very dangerous venom. That’s the type of a leader we have,” Dr M’membe said.

He said Zambians were not fools but had woken up to the reality and were seeing Hichilema for who he was; as a liar and manipulator.

Dr M’membe said Hichilema was a hateful, vengeful and selfish person full of vanity, greed and unbridled appetite for accumulation.

He said Hichilema and Parliament could not defer an illegality called Bill 7. Instead, it should be completely abandoned.

“Something that is not lawful cannot be carried forward. So, there’s no way to fix Bill 7. No. The only way to fix Bill 7 is to go to the judgment of the ConCourt, abandon that and start fresh consultations,” Dr M’membe said.

The Constitutional Court has declared that Bill 7 is unconstitutional and therefore illegal but Mutti has ruled that the enactment of the bill cannot be stopped by an outside body because Parliament.

This has, however, raised a huge storm with the Law Association of Zambia dragging her and Parliament to court to stop the process.