Wed, 03 May 2017 11:44:38 +0000
By Linda Soko
FORMER UPND Bweengwa Member of Parliament Highvie Hamududu has launched a new political party known as Party for National Unity (PNU).
Speaking during the launch in Lusaka, Mr. Hamadudu, who is the interim president, said Zambia was a unitary State, and needed to premise its development agenda on peace and unity.
He said that without unity, , nothing much could be achieved.
He decided to form a political party because ‘‘Zambia was being torn apart by political extremism’’ while there was little room for political dialogue.
“This state of affairs is eating away at the very best fabric of national unity and collective progress as a country.
In some cases, this tension is growing into deep-rooted ethnic hatred,” he said.
He said Zambia needed political organisation premised on national principles and values that saw the good in people of different ethnic groupings instead of painting one another with a broad brush as bad or good.
Mr Hamududu emphasized that no country would develop in the absence of national unity as the case was now in Zambia where precious time and energy were expended on petty quarrels.
“Politics have become more divisive, violent, with petty personal ethnic and non-issues,” he said.
He said as a party of national unity, it was the objective of the PNU to create a private sector-driven economy in which participation of Zambian citizens would be encouraged, promoted and deliberately entrenched.
Interim vice president Antony Lusaka said that no tribe or district or province could make progress by ignoring the interest of national unity.
