Sata Has No Credibility – HH

17 June 2011

United Party for National Development (UPND) president, Hakainde Hichilema has said Patriotic Front (PF) leader Michael Sata has no credibility and is only depending on The Post newspaper to boost his image.

Mr Hichilema said at a Press briefing in Lusaka yesterday that Mr Sata’s popularity had reached a new low despite the vigorous campaign launched for him by The Post, which he described as a PF information department.

He said Mr Sata’s popularity had drastically gone down and that The Post had failed to revive it.

Mr Hichilema said the newly-coined slogan that PF had formed a pact with the people of Zambia was a smokescreen having realised that there was nothing left for Mr Sata.

“They want change, what change do they want because they have been in Government for over 57 years? What has been changing are titles, today he is governor tomorrow he is minister and so on,” Mr Hichilema said.

He said The Post had resolved to stop covering UPND and wondered why the tabloid had started fabricating lies that his party was discussing formation of an alliance with the ruling MMD.

Mr Hichilema said apart from personal attacks against leaders and calling them by their tribes, Mr Sata did not know how to articulate issues and did not even understand economic management.

“You cannot have a newspaper which is always fighting people. I cannot sue them because I do not have a small brain and I do not make money out of suing others, I do business. We will just continue talking about these issues but things will be fine one day,” Mr Hichilema said.

He said if he won the elections, he would provide free education to the Zambian people and grow the economy by re-introducing windfall taxes for the benefit of the Zambian people.

The UPND leader said The Post newspaper was becoming unprofessional by not calling UPND to seek clarification each time they made accusations.

“We are ahead and The Post newspaper and their candidates are trailing. This is the reason they are panicking and fabricating lies about alliances which do not exist,” Mr Hichilema said.

The UPND president called on the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) to resolve anomalies on the voters’ register, and that he had asked for a meeting with them to discuss some important electoral issues.

He said this would guarantee free and fair elections and bragged that he had been to the United States of America to discuss democracy which some leaders like Mr Sata had never done.

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