UPND deputy spokesperson Cornelius Mweetwa says the PF is facing a very wide exit door.

He says at no time has UPND or its leader Hakainde Hichilema advocated for gay rights whether within the Zambia or outside.

Responding to social media reporting alleging that Hakainde Hichilema supported gay rights, Mweetwa, the Choma Central UPND member of parliament, said Zambia’s laws were very clear that gayism had no place in Zambia.

He said the UPND have been very clear on what they stand for.

“This circulation that HH is advocating for gay rights is coming out of the PF propaganda pharmaceutical because PF now can no longer live by the truth. They live and survive, every minute and day, by deception, by propaganda and misinformation, by denying the truth and live by serving the nation on a menu or diet of lies,” he said. “This is a scheme that has been crafted to sway attention from the main challenges the people are facing. This is a deliberate side-show for the people to forget about debating, not to pay attention to the issues about hunger, the rising cost of mealie-meal, the rising cost of fuel, electricity, the lack of jobs by young people and the unaffordable cost of living.”

Mweetwa said the side-show was deliberate and must be dismissed with the contempt it deserved

He said no amount of propaganda would save the PF from exiting government power in 2021.

“As we stand now, PF are staring at a very big door and on top of it is written ‘PF exit 2021’. It’s non-negotiable; the people of Zambia are fed up. Enough is enough!” Mweetwa said.

He said contrary to the Constitution of Zambia, the PF government was now on a path of promoting tribal and region division in the country.

Mweetwa said the PF ministers and the ruling party were promoting tribal and region division in and out of Parliament, which was alarming.

“You saw when HH wanted to donate a genset in Chawama, they said if he wants to donate, let him take it to Bweengwa. That was the government spokesperson (Dora Siliya) shamelessly saying so! HH yesterday wanted to donate mealie-meal in Soloboni area in Kafue; the State how did they respond” They said if HH wants to donate mealie-meal, let him go and donate the mealie-meal in Bweengwa and Namwala,” Mweetwa said.

He said this amounts to tribal consignment of Hichilema to say he could only help the people of Bweengwa because that was where he came from.

Mweetwa said If Hichilema today were to go to Bweengwa and donate mealie-meal, people like Siliya and PF media director Sunday Chanda would be the first ones to say that ‘HH can only the people where he comes from’.

“I want to remind them; fortunately, both of them Dora Siliya and Sunday Chanda, are political pedestrians who were in MMD at the time they were calling Mr Sata all sorts of names that he can never be a president. Now they are in PF calling UPND and HH all sorts of names,” he said. “We understand them because that’s their nature. But they needed to be reminded that HH is a national leader because this is a leader who accounts for 50 percent of the votes in 2016. He got about 1.7 million votes, one percent difference with President Lungu and that one per cent is even disputed. The 1.7 million votes come from all the 10 provinces of Zambia and when he wants to help, he is responding as a national leader. He is responding to a national crisis, wanting to assist a government of failures.”

Mweetwa said instead of appreciating the opposition leader that instead of engaging in politics all the time, and this time he was acting to help the government to respond to the national crisis, they were vilifying him.

He said hunger was not a political issue and that when Hichilema goes to make donations, he does not ask people to come with UPND cards.

He said all Hichilema does was to ask the local people to identify the vulnerable people, including the aged.

“So for them to continue labeling him that he should go and donate in Bweengwa is ridiculous,” Mweetwa said.

“It is mediocre leadership and it explains why the country is stagnated in the mud of poverty. Poverty in Zambia now is being exemplified in the PF as not just lacking resources in material and financial resources but lack of intellectual resource.”

Mweetwa also expressed grave concern over the behaviour of the police on Wednesday when they swarmed the entire Kafue to block Hichilema from donating mealie-meal.

“There is no routine operation which swarms a town like that! I was a police officer; police officers don’t work anyhow. To take truckloads of police officers to Kafue and say ‘it is routine….’ Anyway, we’ll not blame the police – they are working under difficult circumstances. When you have a leadership like the one Zambia has, even the police begin to look incompetent when they are not,” Mweetwa said.