UPND WON’T RECOGNIZE LUNGU

Wed, 27 Dec 2017 12:22:39 +0000

By Simon Muntemba

RECOGNITION of the Presidency should essentially be the outcome of a dialogue and not the basis for the UPND and PF to engage in talks, UPND spokesperson Charles Kakoma has said.

And National Revolution Party (NRP) leader Cozmo Mumba has charged that the much- talked about dialogue spearheaded by the Commonwealth between President Edgar Lungu and Mr Hakainde Hichilema will fail because of the UPND’s stubbornness and refusal to recognise Mr Lungu as Head of State.

In an interview with the Daily Nation yesterday Dr Mumba charged that dialogue was headed for doom because the UPND leadership had insisted that it did not recognise President Lungu as the legitimately elected Head of State.

“The dialogue is definitely not going anyway. It will fail because of the UPND’s stubbornness and failure to recognise Mr Lungu as the elected Head of State. For us as a political party in an alliance consisting of 16 political parties in Zambia, our position is that there is no purpose of holding dialogue because the UPND is not recognising President Lungu.

“How do you expect President Lungu to dialogue with HH when he is stubborn and not ready to recognise him as the republican President?” Dr Mumba asked.

He said dialogue was impossible due to UPND’s continued denial that President Lungu was not legitimately elected by the majority of Zambians in the last general elections.

But Mr Kakoma told the Daily Nation that the recognition of the Presidency being suggested by the PF and Dr Mumba should essentially be the outcome of a dialogue process and not the basis for the two parties to engage in dialogue.

Mr Kakoma said it was sad that PF and its sympathisers had continued to insist on recognition of the Presidency as a pre-condition for dialogue, adding that there should be no pre-conditions for dialogue between Mr Hichilema and President Lungu if dialogue is to succeed.

“When you go for dialogue, you must not go there with pre-conditions. If you have an issue, for example an issue of recognition, you should put it as an agenda item to be discussed during dialogue talks and not to be set as a pre-condition.

“So if President Lungu, the PF and Cosmo Mumba are putting a pre-condition of recognising Mr Lungu before going into talks, then, they are the ones that are making it difficult for the talks to proceed,” Mr Kakoma said.

He said UPND was ready and willing to dialogue with the ruling party but called for unconditional dialogue, adding there was no substitute to sincere dialogue between the ruling PF and his party.