Opposition FDD spokesperson Antonio Mwanza says the ruling Patriotic Front is on a serious mission to turn the country into a one-party state.
Mwanza, who recently attended a workshop for politicians in Africa attended by PF deputy spokesperson Frank Bwalya and UPND’s Charles Kakoma, says the threat on the judiciary is real.
BELOW IS ANTONIO MWANZA’S STATEMENT
The sustained brazen threats and attacks on the Judiciary by the Patriotic Front is part of the larger scheme by the PF to turn this country into what is called a Managed Democracy. A Managed Democracy by definition is a system of governance were the citizens are allowed to participate in elections but are systematically denied a chance to meaningfully participate in the running of affairs of the state; in this system, the masses are excluded from decision making and decision implementation processes. And anyone who tries to raise dissent is silenced and suppressed.
The PF is trying to bamboozle the judiciary in the same way they are bamboozoling all other institutions of governance such as the media, the police, ECZ among others so that they can take full control of the state and ensure that no one is there to hold them accountable. They want to continue stealing and abusing state resources with impunity. In short they want to turn this country into a One Party State were only they and them have decide and do whatever they want and the rest of us become mere spectators in the running of state affairs.
We have never heard PF complain against the Courts when judgements go their way like in the case of Chongwe and Itezhi-tezhi Constituencies.
What they are trying to do is to intimidate and influence the Constitutional Court to overturn the nullification of Munali and Lusaka Central parliamentary seats and ensure that all the other petitions before the courts (and they are many) are ruled in favour of PF.
It should be noted that unlike the other arms of government that are comprised of politicians, the judiciary is comprised of individuals who are mandated by law to be impartial and apolitical. The judiciary has a duty of not only interpreting and administrating the law but also to create laws through precedents or cases. The judiciary is the only arbiter that can give everyone a right to be heard and trying to turn the judiciary into a branch of PF is wrong and unacceptable. The judiciary must serve everyone without fear or favour in order to ensure justice and the rule of law.
It is an indisputable fact that Ms Nkandu Luo and Ms Margaret Mwanakatwe were illegally holding on to their offices as cabinet Ministers long after the dissolution of Parliament; it is an indisputable fact that the two were using state resources to campaign and it is also an indisputable fact that the PF ran a very violent campaign particularly in Lusaka. Let the PF prove in court that these allegations are not true.
The scary truth is that PF is really serious in its quest to turn this country into a one party state and it’s upto every patriotic Zambian to stand up and resist this unbecoming behaviour of the PF or else they will erode all the democratic gains we have so far achieved.
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