Laura advocates for a revolutionary movement
By Staff Reporter
POLITICAL activist Laura Miti says Zambians need a movement that will ensure that no one wins the 2021 elections without genuinely speaking to issues affecting the people.
In an online posting on Friday following the mayoral elections marred with voter apathy on Thursday, Miti called for Zambians to get rid of the ruling Patriotic Front (PF) and the opposition United Party for National Development (UPND) if they did not want to change their way of doing politics.
“We can get rid of both PF and UPND or force them to change. I am very sure that there are enough of us who desperately want something different. My question is, how will find each other? Not by the way to create a political party behind some other sod who just wants to be President,” she stated.
“All we need to do is create a movement that ensures that no one wins 2021, without genuinely addressing that which matters to Zambians. I think that should be the mission of everyone who loves this country. We just cannot surrender and die – as it seems these two elephants want us to”.
Miti urged Zambians to not act like all their umbilical cords were buried at the secretariats of UPND or PF.
“Why are we agreeing to be stuck in an either-or situation, when the two alternatives are essentially mirror images of each other – except, of course, at the top?” she asked.
She wondered why the people who swept PF to power in 2011 are said to have had a protest vote against the PF’s corruption and poor service delivery, would not vote for UPND.
“Well, my view is that, if the UPND in its collective is happy, they need all their heads examined. As I see it, it is our biggest opposition party that should actually be the most worried after yesterday. The thing is, it would be expected that when voters turn away from the PF, they should be moving in significant numbers to the natural alternative, UPND,” she stated.
“This move to the UPND though, by what we saw in Lusaka yesterday, is not happening. The question is, why? Why did voters who refused to vote for PF, not turn up for the UPND? I could list several reasons, but I am lank tired of repeating myself to both the PF and the UPND.
I will just say to the UPND that, the fact that when PF voters stayed at home, you still could not bring out your own constituency to give you what should have been a runaway victory, should frighten you. It means you are not connecting with your own millions of voters and then certainly failing to win over those disaffected with the PF. In short, and as I have said often, UPND has failed to offer anything that is understood as much different from what the PF represents”.
Miti said Thursday’s election turn out was an indication that Zambians did not like either of the two parties.
“Well, simply that if Zambia is to get rid of the PF, as it must if it is to remain a going concern after 2021, then those of us sick to the stomach with what this party of lawlessness is doing to our beloved country will have to find each other,” advised Miti.
