I do not possess the Abrahamic faith that would allow me to believe that the UPND has nothing to do with the internal goings on in the PF.
BUT….
It has to be agreed that a political party has to be structurally weak, brittle and dysfunctional to fall apart as spectacularly as the former ruling party is doing.
Look at it this way – for a good 7 years, the PF, under President Lungu, directed massive energies towards destroying first, Hakainde Hichilema, and then his UPND.
For goodness sake, I can, up to now, swear that HH never cheated on Mutinta, ndaba hmm! Had he even tried, we would have been told names of girlfriends, date and time, to the second, of meet-ups. We would have seen pictures and worse. Money transfer records.
The reason HH survived politically until 2021, when the winds were in his favour, was because he has an undoubtedly outstanding discipline and order in his private life.
As for the UPND – it only survived because it was under a strong leader. Nothing there to talk about.
The tables have now turned, and it is HH who has power over his nemesis. From what we can see, the President is doing no less to exterminate EL, as a political force. He is similarly abusing public institutions for private political ends
The point I am making, though, is that the PF does not have the internal fortitude to survive the incessant neferious activities directed at it.
It also, at this point, as it did for 7 of its years in power, lacks a leader to make strategic decisions that everyone abide by. We all know that President Lungu’s strengths have never included the ability to command personal, forget directional respect.
The result, therefore, of EL insisting on not passing over leadership to the multiple people in PF, that could have held the party together after he lost the national presidency, is the bizarre stuff we are seeing. Dear God, that Chabinga press briefing last night🙆🏽♀️!
With all that taken into account, an indisputable fact still remains. It is that the personal hatred between our current and immediate former Presidents is hurting the country.
We CANNOT, for example, afford 9 by elections. God, in real terms, we can’t even afford one local government by election.
So, it’s no secret that I have little sympathy for the PF, and less for EL as a politician. However, another big BUT is that what is happening, is not about a group of people whose dream is to be reconnected to the Treasury. It is about Zambia!
It is President Hichilema who is in power now. Taking care of Zambia is his first, second and third priority. Whatever he feels about his rival, therefore, the UPND government must stop taking actions that harm our country.
And please don’t tell me Parliament reached it’s desision to declare 9 PF seats vacant, without a single phone call to Plot 1.
Again, I’m not Abraham.
