By Chinoyi Chipulu
UPND deputy secretary general Gertrude Imenda has denied allegations that the ruling party is distabilising the Tonse Alliance and instead advised the opposition grouping to put its house in order.
And Imenda said the opposition political parties in the Tonse Alliance are only talking about removing President Hakainde Hichilema from power without providing alternatives.
In an interview yesterday, Imenda said the opposition should not drag the ruling party into their wrangles because UPND had no interest and was focused on improving the country’s economy.
“We are too busy in that aspect. We don’t have time to go and start meddling or cause confusion in the opposition,” Imenda said. “We are above that. Our focus is to deliver and improve this economy. We have no time for such things. There’s no need to point fingers at your neighbor when you fight with your wife or husband. So let them deal with their own confusion.”
Imenda said the problem was that each leader in the Tonse Alliance had their own personal political ambitions.
“(PF vice-president) Given Lubinda wants to be a president, (lawmaker) Brian Mundubile, (Citizens First leader Harry) Kalaba all want to be presidents,” Imenda said. “So the confusion, though it’s surfacing now, started a long time ago. (Matero member of parliament) Miles Sampa wants to be a president. (Former president) Edgar Lungu wanted to be a president. Each one wants to be a president. Now a thing like that, too many cooks spoils the soup.”
Imenda said it was impossible for peace to prevail in the alliance when everyone wanted to be a boss.
“The confusion is of their own making in this so-called alliance. Each one wants to be a president. And then they want to say the UPND is meddling in their affairs because they were afraid, are we the ones who brought them together?” Imenda asked, adding that UPND had nothing to do with the confusion in the Tonse Alliance as they were focused on delivering their promises.
She said pointing fingers at the UPND showed that the opposition were afraid of the ruling party.
“We are on a journey. When you are on a journey and focused, then you find a little dog by a village, do you stop and start throwing stones at it? No! Because you are focused,” she said.
Imenda said the alliance did not even have a manifesto but were focused on criticising and blaming the ruling party.
“So far, they have not even produced a manifesto as to what they are going to do for the people. For them, their manifesto is removing President Hakainde Hichilema. How can you have a manifesto like that?” she asked. “You go to the voters and you tell them to vote for you because you want to remove this one. The voters would wonder why. Mind you, the people are seeing some benefit of what we are doing for them. So if someone wants to remove HH, he must have alternatives. What is their alternatives to CDF, what’s their alternative to free education and so on? Whatever we do, they criticise without even having alternative solutions. We have nothing to do with the confusion, they should just put their house in order and they should not say we are afraid of them.”
Imenda said the citizens were focused on uniting the country unlike what was happening in the previous administration.
Asked if there was a strong opposition threatening to unseat the UPND, Imenda said Zambians would judge for themselves.
“Let people judge if we have a strong opposition. A strong opposition should offer checks and balances,” said Imenda.
