National Restoration Party (NAREP) President Elias Chipimo has said the Patrotic Front (PF) is desperate for votes and has unleashed a wave of violence in Livingstone and Mpongwe to intimidate their opponents.
Speaking during an interview in Mpongwe, Chipimo said the PF had already outlived its usefulness in Zambian politics.
He said Zambians were not gullible to be hoodwinked again by the PF and that no amount of intimidation would scare the opposition from offering check and balances to the ruling party.
“The PF have proven to all and sundry that they have nothing to offer. What they have done is that they just want to remain in power at all costs and this desperation has caused them to resort to violence in innocent and defenceless people,” he said.
Chipimo said the PF candidate Gabriel Namulambe must not cheat the people of Mpongwe that he would be in a better position to represent them under the PF slogan when he had failed to do that in the previous government.
He said the PF were intimidating the people through violence, but democracy was not meant to thrive on an unfair platform.
“What our friends must do is to show the people what they have done since they came to power. They must tell us which of their campaign promises they have fulfilled, but of course there is nothing to point at in as far as the people are concerned,” he said.
Meanwhile, the police have deployed scores of armed officers to Mpongwe to quell violence being perpetrated by the PF, although some officers interviewed said they were finding it difficult to handle PF cadres with the law.
“These PF cadres from Lusaka and other parts of the Copperbelt are threatening to deal with us if we try to do police work. We are aware that they are beating people and doing all sorts of things, but the Ministers Geoffrey Mwamba, Chishimba Kambwili and Jean Kapata are always here and they are always intimidating us,” a police from Luasnhya said.
Last week, a platoon of PF thugs led by Judge Ngoma invaded many villages in Mpongwe where they assaulted people.
At one village located at the junction of the Luanshya road and Mpongwe High School, the PF thugs descended on the clan and beat children, old men and women including a pregnant woman who is now experiencing pregnancy complications.
The PF thugs are driving in expensive government and parastatal company pick up vehicles that are bearing number plates.
Under the Electoral Act, it is an offence to use public resources and facilities during a political campaign, apart from the President and the vice president.
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