PAC regrets alliance with UPND

PAC regrets alliance with UPND

 By Tony Nkhoma

PEOPLES Alliance for Change (PAC) leader Andyford Banda says he regrets having joined the alliance with President Hakainde Hichilema’s United Party for National Development (UPND).

Speaking during the PAC 2025 national convention ahead of next year’s general elections, Banda said Hichilema was one person who did the opposite of what he said and failed to stick to the agreed principles.

“What we believe as a political philosophy is resilience. It is for this reason that you don’t see us jumping around when there’s little hype in the political space. We have only participated in one alliance, and that alliance was with the UPND,” he said.

Banda  said his party jumped out of the UPND Alliance because it tended to use the wrong governance processes.

He said Hichilema had invited him to work with him to oppose the amendment of the Constitution before the 2021 elections.

Banda said Hichilema and the UPND were doing things they had strongly opposed while in the opposition.

“So sometimes we wonder that the things we stood against with our partners while in the opposition are things that they’re doing now. We stood against the things that they’re actually propagating now, which is very strange to us. We don’t know where our friends in the UPND are taking the country to,” he said.

Banda said the reason for Hichilema’s insincerity was the major reason PAC had left the alliance.

“It is for this reason of insincerity in politics that made us leave that alliance three months after hearing of it. From 2019 up to date, PAC has not participated or engaged itself in any alliance despite the hype that has come,” he said.

Banda said the country needed a government and leadership that focused and responded to people’s concerns rather than personal agendas, as was the case was under the UPND.

“We are not just here to push titles, but we are on a long-term project to build a political platform that can attract people, that can save this country. And that call is urgent. We want to ensure that we break a system that supports a few people and come up with a system that supports the majority. We want to ensure that the Zambian people have a significant role to play in the economic activities of this country,” he said.

Banda expressed worry over the non-participation of Zambians in the economic development of the country, particularly in the mining sector.

“As we speak today, many Zambians, whether it is in mining, or in grocery shops, or in agriculture, in the banking sector, in the manufacturing, and many other sectors, there is no presence of the indigenous Zambian. This is a system that we have adopted from colonial times, and we have to break it,” he said.

He warned Zambians against electing leaders whose interests were against the people, saying next year’s elections were crucial to the future of the nation.

“And we want to break that system once the people of Zambia form a government in 2026. It is for this reason that even as we speak and try to form alliances with other people, we want to be careful because even in the opposition, there are bad people who pretend to be good, and then when you put them into government, you see their true colours, and you get disappointed as is the case now,” Banda said.