By Staff Reporter
Democratic Party (DP) leader Harry Kalaba says the problem with President Hakainde Hichilema is that he thinks every thing good starts and ends with him, and that he has a tendency of wanting to make himself look good at the expense of others.
Addressing the European Union Parliament in Brussels, Belgium on Thursday, President Hichilema observed that the UPND administration inherited a Zambia where freedom of expression, freedom of association and civic participation were curtailed.
“The Zambia we inherited stood on a brink of economic collapse – where corruption, excess and greed of public officials reigned supreme. Shortsighted policies, designed to extract maximum benefit for the few at the expense of the many, were the order of the day. In the Zambia we inherited, freedom of expression, freedom of association and civic participation was curtailed. Our democratic institutions, designed to ensure checks and balances, were compromised, and reduced to mere instruments of dominance for those who held power,” President Hichilema explained. “It is against this background that I stand to firmly attest that the rule of law and respect for human rights are progressively being restored in Zambia.”
But Kalaba speaking with Daily Revelation, said he was getting fatigued with the habit by the President of referring the country to the past.
“The problems with our President is that good starts with him and good ends with him. That’s his only problem. The President thinks everything good starts with him and it should end with him that’s why he can say what he said. And when somebody thinks like that it’s a problem,” he said.
Put to him that there were elements of truth in what the President was saying, Kalaba insisted that it was not a right for any leader to speak ill of his own country before international audiences.
“What element of truth? What element was there for truth? Look, when you go to an international community regardless of the challenges you are having in your own home, you project the good about your country. When you come inside your own country you begin dealing with what you think is not correct. So when the President goes there to present himself as one who is singing praises for that audience and they were clapping and what,” Kalaba said. “All those things, tomorrow when they ask him to give them a mine, tomorrow when they ask him to give them that, is he going to deny them? He is making himself good at the expense of sacrificing other people. A leader doesn’t do that. That’s why you have seen in the beginning I didn’t want to talk about it because for me I am just, it’s so frustrating that you can have a president of the country going to demonize his own country, going to talk about their own wrongs.”
Kalaba continued.
“When did you see (British Prime Minister) Boris Johnson or indeed the Chancellor of German going to talk about an opposition or the last (Chancellor) Angela Merkel? Talk about where you are now and the strides you want to make. I am honestly getting fatigued with this thing of always referring us to the past,” said the former Foreign Affairs minister.
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