…vote freely for leaders of your choice
BY ADRIAN MWANZA
PRESIDENT Edgar Lungu has challenged Zambians to choose peace when the country goes to the polls today.
He said as a leader he chose peace and challenged Zambians to choose peace so that the country could have a great future.
President Lungu in his address to the nation on the eve of the general elections today, said as long as he was president he would not countenance or tolerate violence and that is why he activated the defenceforce to support the police in some trouble spots to ensure peace was guaranteed to citizens before during and after the elections.
“Your President, has chosen peace. I ask you to choose peace that we can have a great future as Zambians,’’ he said.
He said peace was precious and there was need to keep it at all costs and that it was the responsible of every Zambian to pray for peace in their homes and hearts.
President Lungu said only those who didn’t love the country should think of violence and those that hated their families were going to engage in violence.
He urged Zambians not to be swayed into hating one another because of tribe or region because these things bred hatred and violence in the country.
President Lungu said this was evident in the recent happenings in some parts of the country where violence and deaths had happened
“When second republican President Frederick Chiluba, colleagues and many Zambians fought the single-party system for the multiparty system in 1990, they felt the need to bring back diversity in the political space and they felt Zambians needed to choose the political party they wished to belong to,” he said.
He said the parameters that existed then and now were almost similar as the tensions mainly pitted the North versus South but that DR Kaunda managed to hold the country together through his maxim, One Zambia One Nation.
President Lungu said this meant that people from all the 10 provinces needed to be united since we were all Zambians.
He said the movement they created to achieve this was all encompassing since they were people from different regions of the country and yet they had a common belief that Zambia needed a new order.
President Lungu said this was why Dr Chiluba from Luapula managed to win the elections in 1990 beating the then President Kenneth Kaunda.
He said the violence was mainly between cadres from both the PF and the UPND but that he was vocal about the violence and condemned the violence but that it was not the case with his rival who remained mute.
“While some leaders of political parties have not physically been involved in the fights, they have been seen to sponsor these battles either by their actions or non action,” he said.
President Lungu said the measure to deploy soldiers was not national but it just in areas selected as trouble spots.
