Wed, 11 Oct 2017 14:02:51 +0000
By Oscar Malipenga
HAKAINDE Hichilema yesterday u-turned on an agreement entered with the Commonwealth secretary-general Patricia Scotland on proposed dialogue with President Lungu by insisting that the election petition on the 2016 presidential election was still active in court.
Mr Hichilema said as far as he was concerned, his right to be heard was still active in court unless if the Patriotic Front (PF) threw it out while he was in prison.
Mr Hichilema insisted that his and that of his running mate, Geoffrey Bwalya Mwamba’s rights to be heard must be decided upon.
The UPND leader’s comment is contrary to a statement issued by Ms Scotland following several meetings with him (Hichilema) and President Edgar Lungu as they resolved that they both forget about the outcome of the 2016 general elections and focus on the 2021 polls.
But addressing a press conference at his residence in Lusaka yesterday, Mr Hichilema alleged that article 104 of the Constitution was not respected by the Judiciary.
Mr Hichilema was responding to a question from a journalists who wanted to find out the status of his election petition.
Mr Hichilema said the executive abused the Constitutional Court during his petition hearing.
He said he was not fighting a losing battle but fighting for what was provided for in the constitution of Zambia.
Meanwhile, Mr Hichilema accused both the Electoral Commission of Zambia and the Judiciary of being corrupt.
He said everything that he did during the petition period was constitutional and legal.
Mr Hichilema called for unity among UPND members of Parliament whom he directed to be speaking out whenever protesters were harassed outside Parliament.
“That is why they are beating our people. They want to shut them up so that they cannot speak out, that is why they want to close Prime TV and that is why they closed The Post Newspaper,” Mr Hichilema claimed.
Earlier, he accused the Patriotic Front government of abusing citizen’s freedom of speech and assembly.
