New Heritage Party (NHP) leader Ms Chishala Kateka has warned the United Party for National Development (UPND) administration to brace for a full-blown “Pe Lampi” revolution. She said citizens who feel their rights have been stifled are venting their anger over the August general…

New Heritage Party (NHP) leader Ms Chishala Kateka has warned the United Party for National Development (UPND) administration to brace for a full-blown “Pe Lampi” revolution. She said citizens who feel their rights have been stifled are venting their anger over the August general election, which she described as disputed.

Ms Kateka also urged Zambians, especially young people, to reject any attempt to extend or scrap presidential term limits. She warned that the country risked sliding back into full dictatorship if leaders were allowed to rule beyond their constitutional terms.

The NHP leader said Zambians whose rights had been stifled by what she called the selective application of oppressive laws should be allowed to express themselves freely, including at football matches.

“Let the UPND allow the citizens who feel their rights have been stifled by the selective application of oppressive laws to express themselves freely even at football matches,” Ms Kateka said.

She said Zambians had found football stadiums an alternative avenue for venting their anger. It was time, she said, for Government to listen to the cries of the people instead of threatening them with unspecified action.

Ms Kateka accused the ruling party of double standards over political chanting at sporting events. She said that not long ago, UPND supporters freely chanted “Bally” and “Salt sana” in stadiums without any condemnation from the authorities. It was strange, she said, that such chants were now described as provocative and unacceptable.

The chants, in her view, are not about football at all. She said they reflect public frustration over high fuel prices, economic mismanagement and a shrinking democratic space.

The “salt sana” slogan she referred to also featured in the attack on former Patriotic Front (PF) secretary-general Mr Davies Mwila at the Supreme Court. Mr Mwila was alleged to have mocked the slogan before he was confronted by a group inside the court building.

Ms Kateka spent much of her remarks on the question of presidential term limits. She said they were introduced to cure what she called the “wamuyayaya” syndrome, the practice of presidents ruling in perpetuity, as Dr Kenneth Kaunda did for 27 years.

She said Zambians needed to understand their history before making decisions about the country’s future.

“Zambians cannot make meaningful decisions about the future without understanding the past. There is no meaningful decision we can make concerning our future as a nation without first understanding the cause or source of whatever issue we are faced with,” Ms Kateka said.

She said the country’s hard-won sovereignty was lost when the Constitution was amended to create a one-party participatory democracy. That change banned all other parties and vested supreme power in Dr Kaunda and the United National Independence Party (UNIP).

“In a dictatorship, the dictator becomes the state and the state becomes the dictator and that is what happened. This is what we shall not allow in Zambia,” she said.

The NHP leader then turned to the present. She said calls by some individuals to extend President Hakainde Hichilema’s tenure beyond 2031 must be rejected, because they would invite the return of “wamuyayaya” rule.

Changing the Constitution to suit one individual, she said, would be myopic.

She urged young people in particular to stand against any such move. In her view, the protection of term limits is one of the clearest lessons from Zambia’s one-party era.

Ms Kateka’s remarks combine two concerns she says are linked: the right of citizens to express anger in public spaces such as stadiums, and the need to guard the constitutional limits on presidential power.

Her message to the ruling party was to listen to public frustration rather than suppress it. and to the young people was to defend the term limits written into the Constitution.