Patriots for Economic Progress says he stands by his statement that President Edgar Lungu possibly suffering from a mental illness, which might be the primary cause of his various irrational national decisions in the recent past.

Commenting on the various concerns raised by Citizens over his statement, Mr. Tembo said mental illness is just like any other illness and must not be stigmatized.

“As a matter of fact, the national prevalence of mental illness in Zambia is currently about 4% of the general population and a whopping 13% of the adult male population. It is on this basis that the framers of the Republican Constitution took into account the possibility that a person elected to the position of Republican President might suffer a mental illness during their tenure”, Mr. Tembo has said.

He said accordingly, article 107 of the Republican Constitution provides guidance on the procedures that must be followed if the Head of State is suspected of suffering from a debilitating mental illness.

Mr. Tembo said his party has been closely monitoring the quality of official decisions that have been made by President Lungu, ever since he took office in February of 2015.

He said the Patriots for Economic Progress has also been consistently pointing out any poor decisions made by the President, which they usually attribute to incompetence, however in the recent past, they have noted certain poor decisions made by President Lungu which are too grave to be attributed to incompetence alone, but actually border on mental illness or incapacity.

He said a case in point is the decision by President Lungu to purchase a brand new Gulfstream G650 private jet for himself using approximately K900 million of tax payers money, and yet he is failing to pay salaries for his employees in the civil service, local government and parastatal bodies.

Mr. Tembo said another case in point is the decision by the President to send his wife on a meaningless trip to the United States of America to go and receive used second hand fire trucks, with an exaggerated entourage of 25 personnel including maids and cleaners, as if US hotels do not have cleaners, for a prolonged period of about two weeks, using millions of Kwacha of tax payers money, and yet the majority of peasant farmers who supplied their maize to his Government in the last farming season have not been paid.

He has reiterated that President Lungu be subjected to a mental exam for purposes of determining his mental fitness, and consequent suitability to continue holding the office of Republican President, as guided by article 107 of the Republican Constitution.

Mr. Tembo said if indeed the President is mentally sick as they strongly suspect, then he needs to be afforded appropriate medical assistance and therapy so that he could make a full recovery.

“However, if the medical exam determines that contrary to our suspicions, the President is actually mentally fit and that his consistent poor decisions are in-fact not premised on any mental disorder but merely incompetence, then the President will resume his duties. But at least our fears and those of the majority of our citizens that the president might be mentally ill, will be arrayed”, he added.

He said in the quest to address this matter once and for all, the Patriots for Economic Progress will soon be writing to our Opposition Alliance partners in the United Party for National Development, who have representation in Parliament, requesting them to consider laying a motion on the floor of Parliament for President Lungu to be subjected to a mental exam, as provided for by the Constitution.

He said if the motion meets Parliamentary approval, as they expect it, then the Chief Justice will be compelled to institute a medical board to inquire into the mental capacity of the Republican President, within 7 days, as provided for by article 107(4) of the Republican Constitution.

He has emphasised that his party’s position on this matter should not be misconstrued to mean that we disrespect the Republican President in any way and has apologised in advance if in the quest to put across the case, they inadvertently disrespected the President in anyway.

Mr. Tembo said his party firmly believe that the matter of the President’s mental fitness needs to be addressed in a sober and candid manner, without emotional inclinations whatsoever.

Former Lusaka Diocese Archbishop Telesphore Mpundu has warned that there will be chaos in Zambia after the 2021 general elections following the failure of the national dialogue process.

Archbishop Mpundu said that the next election will be characterized by violence due to the failure by politicians to agree to dialogue.

“The next election will be preceded by violence and during elections there will be violence and after the elections there will be chaos in this country,” Archbishop Mpundu warned.

Archbishop Mpundu was speaking on Tuesday when he featured on Frank on Hot radio programme hosted by veteran broadcaster Frank Mutubila on Hot FM.
And Archbishop Mpundu said he does not understand why the ruling party became uncomfortable with the Church led dialogue process when it was President Edgar Lungu himself who requested for the Church to initiate the dialogue process.

“I feel honoured that I am counted as one of those who are the initiators of these but I wasn’t. I think the dialogue was a felt need probably in the ruling party, I say so because the one who asked for the mediation in the dialogue was the President himself, President Edgar Lungu and it was on the occasion of the ordination of the Bishop of Mpika and on the 12th of March 2016 and that was in the view of having peaceful campaigns in the run up to the August 2016 general elections,” Archbishop Mpundu recollected.

He added,” So he said it very clearly to the ZCCB, please, put us together as political players so that we can come to the national dialogue so that we can agree to act as civilized people in the way we do politics. I wasn’t there myself because I had a legitimate reason not to be there but I was in the Chair of the Bishops Conference so when they came back and they told me, I said, look, we have always worked hand in hand with other Churches and so we can’t go it alone, it is not right and always two heads are better than one and here there are three heads which is excellent. So we reached out to the Church Mother Bodies that this is the task which has been given to us, are you coming on board and they said we are very pleased and that is what is what we did.”

Archbishop Mpundu revealed that the first dialogue meeting was later held at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Lusaka.
“And through this interaction, we went through the first meeting at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross and there, representatives of political parties came and we agreed on nine resolutions that can guide our conduct as we went about campaigning and throughout the election period. Those nine resolutions, quite a number of them were very quickly destroyed, quite unfortunately, the people who were in the lead in destroying those were people in the ruling party.”

Archbishop Mpundu who has since retired said the situation degenerated and needed to be rescued.

“What happened that as you know is history but it was our intention that we should not give up, so we regrouped after the aftermath of the arrest and incarceration of HH in the maximum security prison without any charge or any investigations. So we demanded that for dialogue to take place, there is no way we could have dialogue when a key player is incarcerated and there was this high treason charge which was hanging around him,” he stated.

“So we continued and in the end the Commonwealth came in, the Commonwealth came in because of the intransigence of our politicians, if they had listened to us Church Mother bodies, we wouldn’t have needed Baroness Scotland to come together with Professor Gambari, they would have come but we went not prepared to talk to one another,” he said.

Archbishop Mpundu charged that the riling PF was the one behind the failure to record progress in the dialogue process.

“Most of the times, it’s the political party in power that should reach out to the weaker ones but this was not coming forth. So after they came and that man was released, we wanted to continue this and they had to help us to own the process but already very hard lines were being adopted and one of the major players is the political party in power and they told us that they want those to facilitate the process to come from the Zambia Centre for Interparty Dialogue, this was the decision of the political party in power,” he charged.

“The opposition political parties made it very clear that they wouldn’t feel secure if the ZCID took up the facilitation role, they wanted the Church to do that and this has not been accepted and we had a lot of things and articles coming up in the media. We didn’t ask to do this, we were asked by the President and this is what happened in 1990 and that is why they asked the Church had to come in,” he said.

The ruling Patriotic Front (PF) Malole Member of Parliament Christopher Yaluma has welcomed his expulsion from his party’s Central Committee. Mr. Yaluma, who is also Minister of Commerce, said that there was nothing sinister about his expulsion because the party has powers to hire and fire.

Mr Yaluma told Journalists in Lusaka that he is relieved by his expulsion especially given the burden of his work, stressing that the move will help him to mobilize the party ahead of the 2021 general elections.

Mr. Yaluma has since pledged to rally behind the Patriotic Front and to ensure that the party gets more votes in the 2021 general elections as compared to the 2016 elections, adding that he remains a member of Parliament and will continue to remain loyal to the Party.

Yesterday, PF Secretary General Davies Mwila has fired Malole member of parliament Christopher Yaluma from the Central Committee as well as from his position as party chairperson for Mines.

In his letter dated March 18, 2019, addressed to Yaluma, Mwila stated that the Central Committee had ordered the removal of Yaluma for failure to attend Central Committee Meetings for three consecutive times.

“I wish to inform you that the Central Committee meeting held on 9th March, 2019, directed to remove you as a member of the Central Committee and chairperson Mines for failure to attend meetings for three consecutive times. As you are aware, a member of the Central Committee who misses three consecutive meetings without notice automatically ceases to be a member of the committee. In light of the above, you are advised to hand in any party property in your custody. I wish to thank you for the services you rendered to the party as chairperson Mines,” Mwila stated.

Rainbow Party General Secretary Wynter Kabimba believes that the impending National Dialogue can still take place whether the Church is involved or not.

Mr. Kabimba has urged stakeholders to consider finding another institution to lead the National Dialogue if the Church, as a grouping, is not in a position to preside over the dialogue process.

He has told Q-News that the church was in fact not the only institution that was capable to preside over the dialogue process in the first place.

Mr. Kabimba is of the view that are many individuals in the Country that are capable to lead the National Dialogue just as much as the church can possibly do.

He says this is why he does not think the National Dialogue should collapse owing to the fact that the church mother bodies that were earlier engaged in the process are having problems.

The Rainbow Party leader states that government should, in this case, ensure that dialogue process is put in motion in order that some of the issues affecting the Country can be addressed

He states that National Dialogue is still important and he does not think the government can do without it.