By Fred M’membe President of the Socialist Party
No political anger, no political differences, no electoral malpractices or violations can justify atrocious acts such as the physical elimination of political opponents.
No crime can be committed in the name of politics, elections or protecting the vote.
If people are caught trying to rig elections or commit any crime, it is not right to instantly kill them. This is lawlessness. It runs contrary to the rule of law. Make a citizen arrest and subject them to prosecution.
In our last virtual rally on Wednesday I said, “We go into these elections with blood on the hands of some of members of the PF and UPND. Its votes covered in blood. Theirs are not clean votes; they are blood soiled votes. They have confused electoral campaigns with a battlefield where the aim is to destroy the other.”
The killings have continued. The leaders of these two ‘siamese twins’ parties have failed to stop this violence. They are very quick to make condemnations when it is their own members at the receiving end. They are literary mute when it is their own members doing the killing. This is not leadership. To them, it would seem, the life that is valuable is only that of their members.
But all human life is sacred, holy, and precious. The sanctity of life is inherent as man cannot create life. Therefore, man has no authority to destroy life. It is the only way for humankind to exist.
We demand that the leaders of these two violent, and unfit to govern, parties take responsibility and stop these killings. These elections are competition to serve and not a ‘do or die’ contest.
Fred the shred, you helped create this beast with your Post newspaper. You are partly responsible of this mayhem by teaching us how to use the power of the media to destroy ourselves. Enjoy the fruits of your labour.
But he speaks the truth
IT’S THE BEGINNING OF THE END FOR EDGAR CHAGWA LUNGU ,PF AND HIS CRIMINAL ENTERPRISE OF A GOVERNMENT .
ZAMBIA CANNOT SURVIVE ANOTHER FIVE YEARS OF THIS BAND OF THIEVES
Surrogate just go retire. You aided PF which has been breeding this culture of violence. From time PF has been in power we have seen unprecedented loss of life ever due to political violence. There is no justification for loss of any life. All parties who have enabled loss of life including upnd members should be condemned unequivocally.
Truth and honest is a virtue. Before elections UPND killed two PF members in Lusaka. On election day UPND kills another two PF members in North Western Province. Miles Sampa stubbed and his body guard machetted by UPND in Matero. Polling agents of PF harrassed and some turned away in southern province by UPND. So all the names you people call ECL they just fit all these incidents. And if I am not mistaken ECL is not the president of UPND. Voting is witnessed by all parties and a transparent ballot box used. Only if you see someone stuffing ballot boxes can you get concerned but to kill someone on suspicion that they are carrying premarked ballots. A woman in Kaoma survived the same. This is a reflection of Zambia under UPND.
Well spoken King Fred!
You’re the problem. Standing for the presidency when you know you have no structures on the ground to govern! You sir are the problem in our society; always in it for your own ego even at the expense of democracy.
It’s naive to think that the ruling party will be civil, they are crooks. They have arm twisted the courts, soldiers and police. It’s Lungu’ and PF fault. People don’t trust our men and women in uniform, because of PF
A Chavula was arrested in previous election in the manner Mr Meembe describes as legal. What happened next?
Are there any situations when crime can be justified?
None entity, just sue the ka useless Lungu and maybe you can get some money out of that fical matter yellow stinking teeth worst president on earth for the post that he closed down. If I were you I will be on his neck like a fuk3n rash, he has no govt machinery any more, the chap is a nobody
They’ve blood on their hands and one day these cadres will turn against them. Cadres commit these crimes because they’re rewarded by their sponsors. We should brace for more violence because the frontrunners are major sponsors of violence
Ayatollah @10, what a tangled web u hv woven in your posting. Self-defense is accepted in court as legitimate violence. That’s wht has been happening in Zambia. What violence was there on 23 December 2020 when public prosecutor Nsama was shot dead? Democracy is capable of producing a result that u may not like.
Fred is right. These people have just shown how foolish they are. They must be caged.
@Nemwine, it’s better to reexamine your comments on some topics. I lost 2 relatives in Southern province in January 2015, I have again lost a relative in Solwezi at the hands of UPND supporters. Hichilema can be President but he won’t be able to heal the anguish that the family has gone through. If he didn’t carry a horde of cadres to Force HQs those deaths wouldn’t have occurred. The atmosphere is still toxic as the UPND are ready to shed more blood if their candidate isn’t declared winner, who is he going to govern?
Mwankole @ 9, that’s a good reminder to Fred M’membe and his selective amnesia. Chavula the Ugandan disappeared into thin air and Fred M’membe knows that. Will the failure of the criminal justice system to bring Chavula to justice help M’membe to rethink his argument? I hope so but he’s not normally known for that sort of thing.
I’m sorry to hear that u hv lost relatives during political violence. But who has allowed the atmosphere in which violence breaks out to emerge? It seems u hv a troubled relationship with facts. People restrained themselves after the Chavula incident at the elections results declaration centre in in 2016 and did not mete out instant justice. Chavula was caught red-handed interfering with ECZ servers and video footage of it all is available. How much provocation do u want others to put up with?
Let the police do their work independently for once.
Lungu tries to pretend that there were problems for voters in the three opposition provinces. maybe he’ll explain to us how come they mostly had turnouts of over 80% when the PF supporting provinces rarely even had turnouts of over 70%?