The latest updates from the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) by its Chief Electoral Officer Patrick Nshindano give hope that we can have an effective electoral process.
The commission is responding to all the concerns being brought forward by stakeholders.
The concerns of having few kits in registration centres have been addressed, just like the issue of man power.
We are being told that several additional staff have been deployed to beef up the shortage of human resource.
The issue of operational hours has also been addressed with a position that all Civic centers across the country will be operating 24 hours a day for the remaining period of Voter registration.
This is the type of an electoral body any stakeholder needs, or perhaps wants.
The commission is now being patriotic and effective, a thing which is expected of an independent body.
We however do not agree with a position that an extension of the registration is not guaranteed.
Why do we disagree with the commission?
We are disagreeing not because we know that attaining the 9 million voters target is not realistic,NO! It is because the process initially started with teething problems.
People took days to start receiving a proper service and who accounts for those days that were lost?
Besides, at some point, the machines stopped working because some passwords were need.
Who accounts for that lost time?
We understand that we are behind time and that ECZ needs more time to prepare for nominations and later elections but an extension is just a must.
If ECZ does not want to extend, then let them beef up all the centres again and increase working hours in all the centers as they need to create two shifts – day and night.
We are sure they should have the money because we never saw any massive voter registration campaign exercise like always. -ZR