Two opposition parties get to gether for 2011 elections

Two opposition parties have agreed to work together to provide more effective checks and balances to the MMD Government. In a joint statement by Patriotic Front president Michael Sata and United Party for National Development president Hakainde Hichilema in Lusaka June 4, the two leaders said the parties would work together at all levels on all matters of national importance.

The two political parties are also demanding early presidential and parliamentary elections.

“We have therefore started a long and difficult march in the same direction, not as one organisation but as two giants in Zambian politics,” they said.

The two leaders said their political parties were the only representatives of the majority of the Zambian people. They alleged that the MMD had in the past taken advantage of the differences within the opposition "to entrench bad governance and massive inefficiency".

The two leaders said the suffering of the Zambians would not end under the current Government and they were responding to the loud and growing appeal from party members and the general public. They said they would lay groundwork for an effective, accountable, efficient and pro-poor government to replace the MMD.

But MMD deputy national secretary, Jeff Kaande, said the MMD was not scared of the PF and UPND working together because the MMD had become stronger. However, Kaande said the PF and UPND could even merge with other political parties but the MMD would still beat them in the 2011 elections. He said calls for early elections were "wishful thinking" because the country would only hold presidential and general elections in 2011.

“That is just politicking. They are just entertaining and pleasing themselves because they have no power to call for early elections,” Kaande said.

The two parties tried to forge an election pact in 2008 but failed. In 2006 the PF had an election pact with Sakwiba Sikota's United Liberal Party which did not succeed.