By REBECCA MUSHOTA and JAMES KUNDA –
THE Patriotic Front (PF) has admonished United Party for National Development (UPND) presidential adviser Douglas Siakalima for insinuating that President Edgar Lungu is ‘fooling the Church’ by expressing intent to participate in a national political party leaders’ dialogue to denounce violence.
PF deputy secretary general Mumbi Phiri said in an interview in Lusaka yesterday that Mr Syakalima’s position, as quoted in last Saturday’s edition of The Post newspaper, was unfortunate and indicative of the fact that the opposition political party was not interested in promoting national unity.
“It is unfortunate for Mr Syakalima to issue such a statement because in the first place, it’s the Catholic bishops that proposed the holding of a national stakeholders’ meeting to address political violence,” Ms Phiri said.
“The President just responded to the call by the bishops, so Mr Siakalima should not mislead the nation by stating that the President is fooling the Church.”
She said the ruling party was of the view that the UPND never had intentions of participating in progressive programmes aimed at promoting peace in Zambia.
Meanwhile, the Catholic bishops are making preparations for the meeting they are set to convene for political party leaders to dialogue on how to end violence.
Zambia Episcopal Conference (ZEC) general secretary Cleophas Lungu said the bishops were preparing for the meeting whose position would be given soon.
“We are making progress with our preparations,” Father Lungu said. “We have started with our preparations and we will give a position.”
About a week ago in Mpika, ZEC proposed to President Lungu to participate in a meeting with other political leaders to dialogue over political violence in the country.
The Head of State said he had agreed to attend the meeting because he wanted to see an end to the violence that the country had experienced lately.
In calling for the meeting, the bishops were responding to the call by Mr Lungu for the Church to do more to curb chaos.