Edgar Lungu for 2021
Edgar Lungu
Antonio Mwanza the FDD Spokesperson writes:
For a long time now I have resisted questions and temptations mostly from the media to comment on the raging debate and endorsements about President Edgar Lungu’s candidature for 2021 elections largely because I thought that this matter was a straightforward issue and because ordinarily I rarely comment on people’s personal endeavours. However, the naivety being exhibited by some and the direction that the debate is taking has forced me to say a few things.
Firstly, i find it extremely naive for some people and some organisations to be asking President Edgar Lungu to condemn and stop the various individuals and leaders within PF who are pushing this issue and endorsing him for 2021. Let’s face it, how can President Edgar Lungu honestly stop this debate when he is in fact the one who started it? We all recall that this debate was started by the President himself. A few months ago when he visited Luapula, the President declared that he is running for 2021. He said he had read the Republican Constitution and that he was eligible to stand again in 2021. In fact he went a step further and challenged anyone who did not agree with him to take the matter to the Constitutional Court. When he was in the Copperbelt he again declared that he will be on the Presidential ballot in 2021. He even mocked his “pot bellied” rival that if he thought that 2021 was his, “aloba ilyauma”. Not so long ago when addressing the PF youths in Lusaka, Mr Lungu again declared himself the PF presidential candidate for 2021. With this background, it is surely naive for anyone to ask President Lungu to stop this debate because he himself is the archtect and sustainer of this whole debate.
Again, to blindly condemn the leaders and individuals within PF who are campaigning and endorsing Mr Edgar Lungu is to fail to appreciate the dynamics at play here. Firstly, we all ought to know, that in politics, such maneuvers don’t just happen, they are carefully hatched. There are several reasons why certain individuals have taken it upon themselves to be pushing this debate forward:
1.It could be that these individuals really believe in President Lungu and they really want him to go beyond 2021. That is their right. Whether it is legally right or not is another issue;
2. It could be that these individuals are actually surrogates of the president and are actually being oiled to push his agenda;
3. Zambian politics is full of patronage, bootlicking and praise-singing, so it could be that these individuals are pushing this debate to impress the president that they are his loyalists in a bid to get some favours from him and
4. It could be that this whole debate is a strategy by the PF to divert public attention from the pressing economic issues the country is currently facing to this unproductive debate in order to ease the pressure on themselves.
In conclusion, I want to remind ourselves that this matter of President Edgar Lungu’s eligibility for 2021 is actually in the Constitutional Court and the best we can do for now is to cut it off and await the judgment of the Court.