PETITION: UPND lying

Fri, 07 Apr 2017 11:29:45 +0000

…UPND has no presidential petition to be heard – lawyer

By OSCAR MALIPENGA

THERE is no UPND presidential petition case in court, lawyer Makebi Zulu has said.

Therefore the statement by Mr. Hakainde Hichilema and his team demanding to be heard is a complete ruse and misdirection intended to mislead the nation.

Mr. Zulu, who is Eastern Province minister, said the only case which was in court was the one in which UPND had sued Government and had nothing to do with whether President Edgar Lungu was duly elected or not.

Mr. Zulu explained that the current UPND case in court was procedural and could not change the fact that President Lungu was the Head of State.

And the Patriotic Front (PF) deputy spokesperson Frank Bwalya has said the UPND had itself to blame for failing to deliver its case against the 2016 presidential election to the Constitutional Court within the 14 days allowed by law.

He said the UPND was therefore being mischievous by demanding that they will only recognise President Edgar Lungu and dialogue with his Government if their presidential petition was heard in court.

Mr. Bwalya has charged that the UPND had reached a stage of desperation because ‘‘bitterness had clogged their thinking’’.

Mr. Bwalya said the presidential petition hearing being demanded by the UPND was beyond the Patriotic Front (PF).

Yesterday, UPND secretary general Stephen Katuka told the Daily Nation that his party would never dialogue with the PF until the presidential petition was heard.

And party leader Hakainde Hichilema has said hearing the presidential petition was the only way to compel him and the entire UPND to stop talking about the 2016 general election aftermath.

Mr. Katuka said Mr. Hichilema had vowed that coercing him to recognize President Lungu as the duly elected President of Zambia without hearing the petition was a sheer waste of time because he would not concede defeat until justice prevailed on the 2016 election results.

Meanwhile, UPND spokesperson Charles Kakoma accused the PF government of having chosen a path of conflict by refusing to dialogue with the opposition political party.

Mr. Kakoma has charged that there was no way the PF government could rule without dialogue.

But Mr. Bwalya said the UPND was experiencing an ‘airlock’ regarding the way they were functioning and perceived on national issues. He said there was no way the UPND could drag the Patriotic Front into their failed presidential petition.

“It is not us in the PF who decided that the petition should be heard and concluded with the 14 days; on the contrary, it is the Constitution which stipulated as succ,” he said.

He said it was the same UPND which was in the forefront demanding that President Lungu should assent to the Constitution without changing anything.

Mr. Bwalya wondered how he could now change and blame the PF for squandering their own time (14 days) in court.

“The UPND is essentially saying they do not want to dialogue with the Patriotic Front government,” Mr. Bwalya said.

He said their demand was beyond the PF while the PF’s condition was with the UPND’s means.

Mr. Bwalya said the PF’s demand was that the UPND recognise President Lungu as validly elected and constitutionally sworn in.

“Our conditions include that HH should avoid his violent means of resolving issues and condemn the violence of his cadres such as his three bodyguards who assaulted me at Sky FM in March 2016 and are now convicted and jailed,” Mr. Bwalya said.

He said the PF was also demanding that Mr. Hichilema should condemn his cadres who killed an innocent citizen in Kanyama where they were protesting police refusal to allow them hold a rally.

“We are also demanding that HH should start respecting President Lungu and use civil language whenever referring to the President,” Mr. Bwalya said.