The crisis rocking Zambia’s main opposition party, the Patriotic Front (PF), has intensified as the faction led by MP Miles Sampa has submitted a written request to lawyers to sue the Chairperson for Information and Publicity of the faction led by former President Edgar Lungu faction, Emmanuel Mwamba, with contempt of court.
Deputy Media Director of the Sampa faction, Hing’andu Hamasamu, who revealed this in a statement on Monday, said a deliberate ploy by Mwamba to try and mislead the public in a podcast discussing the convention of the party borders on disobedience and contempt of court.
Hamasamu stated that the “case of the convention or conference was active in the courts of law, both at the High Court and Appeals Court levels” and as such, Mwamba’s podcast amounts to contempt of court.
The podcasts which Hamasamu referred to emanated from Mwamba hosting two PF cadres namely Victor Kapungwe, otherwise known as Mr Ground, and Justin Chama, aka Chama Amelika, on the “Conversation Podcast” recently where they discussed the factional convention that ushered in Sampa as the leader of the PF.
“As a party, we have noted this disregard of the law and have engaged our lawyers to study the podcast, then guide us accordingly,” he stated.
Hamasamu said the party which has been rebranded by Sampa was very transparent with nothing to hide from the public.
He noted that the party, unlike in the past, now encourages freedom of speech but only to the extent it did not interfere with the law especially that all rights and freedoms had limitations under the law.
“The freedom of expression is vital to our ability to convey opinions, conversations, beliefs and to meaningfully participate in democracy,” Hamasamu said.
Hamasamu further stated that in the case of Mwamba’s podcast, “all contents fly straight in the arena of contempt of court which was a criminal offence in Zambian statutes.”
“Court matters are battled in courtrooms and not on media platforms. We have left his acts in the hands of our lawyers,” he stated.