Tue, 19 Sep 2017 09:59:18 +0000
By Annie Zulu
THE opposition United Party for National Development (UPND) must take President Edgar Lungu’s availability for dialogue seriously to put an end to the tension that was dividing the nation, former Vice president Enoch Kavindele has said.
Mr Kavindele noted that the President had made himself readily available for dialogue and therefore it was now up to UPND, as a party affected to seize the opportunity and use the platform to address various issues of national interest.
And the former vice president has urged politicians to desist from hate speech and inciting Zambians against each other.
He said that the competition between political parties should not make them forget the common objective of justice, peace, prosperity, harmony, good governance and ‘‘building a nation that could be admired by other countries’’.
Mr Kavindele emphasized that peace was cardinal in the development of the country.
“There should, therefore, be no room for hate speech. Insults and caricatures should give way to rational discussion of issues that will serve all of us,
“We must preserve our peace, because without it, we will be like many of these other Africa countries that are in trauma,” he said.
He advised politicians to concentrate more on building relationships and trust among parties.
Mr Kavindele noted that what was needed to overcome the country’s challenges was unity and patriotism among political parties.
“We don’t want to hear insults among political parties, all we need are solutions to the challenges that we are going through as a country, and these solutions can only be found if politicians respects each other and hold hands,” he said.
He said politics of hate and character assassination would not help develop the country, but rather destroy it.
“We would like to see the spirit of friendship and patriotism among the political parties so that Zambians would be reassured that there was no hidden agenda,” he said.
