By NATION REPORTER
IT is not true that the UPND administration has failed to deliver on its promises to Zambians and the propaganda being peddled by the Patriotic Front (PF) that there is disenchantment among citizens is but an attempt to misguide Zambians, Cornelius Mweetwa has said.
Mr Mweetwa says it would have been lawlessness and vindictiveness for United Party for National Development (UPND) to embark on a crusade of rounding up Patriotic Front (PF) suspected plunderers soon after forming government.
Mr Mweetwa has said the narrative that there is disenchantment among citizens because the UPND has allegedly failed to deliver on its promises was politically being generated by the PF along with what he termed their allied media.
Mr Mweetwa says it is the PF that is pushing the political narrative that Zambians are getting disenchanted with the UPND because the governing party has failed to meet the expectations of the people.
Mr Mweetwa explained the lesson the PF should have learnt from the 2021 general elections should have been the realisation that propaganda would never win elections in Zambia.
“There is one lesson the PF should have learnt from the 2021 general elections and that is propaganda does not win elections. What is true is that you can cheat the people and use money to bribe them to vote for you, but the Zambians shall always vote for the right President,” Mr Mweetwa said.
And Mr says most Zambians were of the expectation that the former leaders in the PF who have been arraigned before the courts of law for corruption should have been hurriedly tried and jailed by the UPND administration.
Mr Mweetwa, the UPND spokesperson and Southern Province Minister said in an interview that the new dawn was governing the country by following the rule of law and would therefore not engage into political witch-hunt and retribution of the former leaders in the PF government.
He said the PF was bubbling of regaining its lost confidence because most of its senior leaders knew that they would have been in jail after losing the 2021 general elections but the UPND government did not want to engage in lawlessness by arresting citizens without thorough investigations.
“The PF seem to be gaining their lost confidence after losing the 2021 general elections because they know that they should have been in jail for corruption. But that would have been lawlessness and against the constitution.
“The UPND government did not want to embark on a crusade to arrest and hurriedly prosecute and jail those suspected to have plundered the country because…this is a government of laws.
“Now, a number of our colleagues are appearing in court and it was the expectation of many Zambians that those who have been arraigned before the courts of law should have been speaking from behind bars,” Mr Mweetwa said.
Mr Mweetwa stated that many former leaders in the PF were thinking that the UPND administration was going to raid and confiscate their properties but were surprised that President Hakainde Hichilema’s administration had chosen uniting the country and not victimisation and retribution.
He said the fact that the PF were freely criticising the government, even accusing it of corruption did not mean that the former ruling party had rebranded.
Mr Mweetwa claimed that Zambians still detested the PF and would not want the former ruling party back into power because of what they had been subjected to by the former regime.
“The PF think they have rebranded because they are free. But there is no rebranding and that is why from the 26 local government by-elections that were recently held, the UPND had won 24 of the seats,” Mr Mweetwa said.
