By Agness Changala
Citizens First (CF) president Harry Kalaba has accused the UPND of being a violate political party.
And Kalaba said Zambia will only be healed when the UPND is taken out of power because they have not come to reconcile the nation, but to divide it.
Meanwhile, sports minister Elvis Nkandu has refuted Kalaba’s allegations that he and his supporters engaged in violence and deflated tyres to his vehicle.
Speaking to Daily Revelation, Kalaba said UPND practices politics of vengeance, hatred and violence.
“As you know UPND is a violent party. Very violent. But whoever thought UPND would be different surprises me.
The politics that UPND knows are politics of vengeance, politics of hatred, politics of violence,” he said.
“Zambia will only be healed when we get rid of UPND because these guys have not come to reconcile the nation, they have come to divide the nation.”
He said UPND cadres deflated tyres to his vehicle adding that he has reported the incident to the police and the Electoral Commission of Zambian(ECZ).
Kalaba said the UPND wanted to cause violence in the area but people are peaceful and resisted their bad manners.
“The UPND want to bring in their issues of violence but the people here are peaceful and are resisting their bad behavior and bad habits. So we are only urging the police here to be vigilant and alert to ensure that they stop any kind of shenanigans that the UPND might want to push. They want to bring confusion because it’s a confused party,” he said.
He explained that in line with the ECZ schedule, Kalaba was supposed to be in the area where they met with Nkandu’s team.
“We were in our area then UPND came with cadres with four to five vehicles just to come and begin… people. That’s when I went to confront Elvis (minister of Sports Nkandu). I said why are you doing this and he was asking me who should be here, so they came with the only motive to fun violence,” said Kalaba.
The opposition leader and some party officials are in Chimbamilonga Constituency of Nsama district to campaign for their party candidate Davie Chama who is taking part in mwembeshi ward by-election scheduled for November 1, 2023.
When contacted to respond to Kalaba’s allegations, Nkandu laughed off everything saying no violence occured.
“There was nothing not even near to that.
There was nothing like that apart from the fact that me and my team had a meeting at Mulenga Village.
The headman had to talk to the people very early in the morning just to make them aware that I will be addressing them at Mulenga Village,” he said.
Nkandu explained that he and his team met Kalaba on the way to Mulenga Village where he was scheduled to address people.
He said he was addressing some people about three of them at a house when him and his team embarked from their vehicles to meet with their people.
“And there was jubilation where we were. After two to three minutes, he came looking for me, ‘I want Elvis’,” he said. “So I went to him and we were just having a chat. In fact, I even told him don’t talk about me here, talk about issues, how your councilor will work for the people. I told him these are just politics and we should not be talking about individuals but issues.”
Nkandu said while they were talking, Kalaba started pointing fingers at him and it was at this stage that his supporters went and asked why he was pointing fingers at him.
“But I told them it was fine and there was nothing.
He said later minister of Small and Medium Enterprises Elias Mubanga told him that they were also supposed to have a meeting at the same place,” he said.
According to Nkandu, Mubanga told Kalaba there are no people waiting for him and if he proceeded, he would just bring problems.
Kalaba was then advisee to go where he was going.
“That’s how Mubanga took him to the car and they left.
There was nothing like deflating any tyres,” he said.
Nkandu wondered how they travelled if his tyres were deflated, saying they would have been stuck but he sped oof and left.
He said Kalaba is making accusation because he is not closer to winning the by-election saying PF have numbers compared to him who will only garner 10 votes at most.
He said the environment is conducive and everyone is campaigning peacefully.
The UPND have fielded Elvis Kabuta, PF Stephen Musonda, and CF Chama.
