ABOUT UPND INTIMIDATION
Dear Editor,
DURING his address to UPND councillors and members at Woodlands Lodge in Lusaka last week, UPND national spokesperson who is also Southern Province Minister, Cornelius Mweetwa encouraged his colleagues in the party to attack us and our party members because of the checks and balances that we provide to his so-called “New Dawn” Government.
The biggest handicap that the UPND have is that they lack anyone in their team with the necessary intellectual capacity to counter our submissions on national affairs.
They also realise that our submissions have opened the eyes of most Zambians who now see the UPND administration for the lie that it is.
So their only solution is to attack us in the mistaken hope that they can intimidate and silence us. They send armies of keyboard warriors to insult us and scandalise us on social media.
If someone came to Zambia for the first time, they’d actually think that the UPND lost the last elections, going by their bitterness and insults. Insulting is the only thing that they can do well, because they cannot make an intellectual argument.
As instructed by Mr Mweetwa, we have seen an increase in not only online insults and fake scandals in the past few days, but also people trailing us in different vehicles. The trailing is amateurish so it’s definitely not from the system but from the UPND party wing.
Our first message to Mr Mweetwa and his masters is simple: We shall not be intimidated. We fought the PF tyranny in the streets, in courtrooms and in boardrooms and we are equal to the task of fighting UPND tyranny in the same manner and fashion.
While we were busy protesting against PF corruption in Cairo Road and being hacked with pangas for doing it, Bally was busy on Twitter at home.
And today you think you can intimidate us? If we survived the PF, who are you? Our freedom of expression is not an act of courtesy from Bally. To the contrary, it is guaranteed by the Constitution of Zambia.
The fact that you won the last election does not mean that Zambia is no longer our country also. Zambia is not only for those who voted for you. Zambia belongs to us all.
And l wish to put it on record here that even at the height of PF political violence, we never saw or heard a government minister publicly instructing party members to attack the opposition, like what we have seen Mr Mweetwa do. Clearly UPND thuggery and impunity is unprecedented.
Our second message to Mr Mweetwa and his masters is equally simple; we are ready and willing to die for this country and we hope that you are also ready and willing to do the same.
SEAN TEMBO,
PeP President.
