EDITORIAL COMMENT
-Mon-27-07-20 – Lusaka –
ESAU AND NSHINDANO SHOULDN’T TURN THEIR BACKS ON FIRE AND BURN THEIR BEHINDS
…….They’ll be made to sit on their blisters if tricks to suffocate our aspirations are confirmed.
••••••••••••••••••••
THIS TIME around, Zambians and the Civil Society Organizations have placed an eagle eye on the Electoral Commission Of Zambia (ECZ) and they’re paying rapt attention to all the utterances by its chairperson, Esau Chulu and its director, Patrick Nshindano. What these two ECZ senior personnel tell the nation concerning their cry for a free and fair electoral process and what they do behind closed doors don’t go in the same direction. In short we can simply say that whatever they are telling the Zambian people isn’t registering because what they’re doing behind doors is nasty.
Sometime this year, they announced that they awarded a ballot printing tender to a Dubai firm called Algurair which printed the 2016 ballots. This ignited a serious debate because people argued that this company is synonymous with most disputed elections which rocked Uganda, Rwanda and Kenya and others asked why awarding a Dubai based firm when ballots can be printed locally or nearby South Africa. The response Zambians got from ECZ was very annoying. ECZ through its director described our observations as rubbish and arrogantly stated that it’s them who are mandated to run elections in this country further rubbing salt on the wounds of the Zambian people by indicating that the ECZ isn’t going to sponsor monitors to the printing process in Dubai next year.
Secondly, the ECZ announced that they have projected a voters roll of over 9,000,000. In the past three general elections, the voters register increment has been hovering between 51 and 29 percent. In 2001, the voters register stood at around 2,604,741 and in 2006, it stood at around 3,941,229 representing an increment of 51.3%. In 2011, the voters register stood at 5,167,154 representing an increment of 31.1% and in 2016, the voters register stood at 6,698,372 representing the increment of 29.6% and the 9,000,000 projection will represent an increment of 34.3% which we think is consistent and fair enough. Now, what we know is that each time there’s a registration exercise in the country, ample time is usually allocated so that people don’t get left out. Our question is why have you given us 30 days only? We want the ECZ to make a clean breast of the hypothesis they used in each constituency considering that we are looking at a 34.3% or let’s say 2,301,628 new voters and the fact that this crooked government started the NRC exercise in perceived PF strongholds 7 months ago and that prisoners will be allowed to cast their votes.
We are advising Esau Chulu and Patrick Nshindano to tread very carefully. If they are going to give in and turn their backs on fire and burn their behinds, the Zambian people will make them sit on their blisters because it’s a known fact that the coming elections are definitely going to be in favor of the majority Zambians. With this in mind, it’s also a well known fact that the opposition will go into the next year’s elections after having dotted it’s ‘I’s and ‘Q’s very carefully and the Zambian people are also charging by the day owing to the growing discontent in the economy and the arrogance coming from the podesta.
Do the right Chulu. Do the right thing Nshindano. The purpose of an election is to hear the will of the people, and not to fabricate votes.
We allowed it in 2015, we allowed it 2016 because all we wanted was peace but we are not going to allow it in 2021 because we’ve realized our freedoms are vanishing and if we do not get active to take a stand now against all that is wrong while we still can, then it’s going to be more riskier and much, much harder for our children who may elect to do so in future.