2 ‘Presidents’ perform comedy act at ECZ Centre
The Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) presidential nomination centre was yesterday turned into something between a circus and a comedy club when two opposition party ‘presidents’ appeared for their pre-nominations exercise of processing supporters.
First on the stage for his comical act was ‘President’ Masuwa Kalabi an independent presidential candidate.
When President Kalabi arrived at the nomination center at his allocated time of 12:00 hours, because of the dusty shoes caused by his walking mileage, guards and staff mistook him for a Mulungushi Centre cleaner until he produced his NRC and voters card and demanded to be processed as a presidential candidate.
However, the act got sorrowfully funnier when ECZ asked for President Kalabi’s 100 supporters.
Without any supporter in sight, Kalabi left the Mulungushi imposing front gate onto Great East Road where he walked from East Park through Arcades to Manda Hill begging anyone who had ears to escort him to Mulungushi and even just for five minutes pretend to be his supporters.
However, due to his not-so-presidential looks, no one took him seriously with some teenagers giggling and asking him where he had hidden his discharge slip from Chainama Hospital.
Frustrated, President Kalabi marcopolod his way back to the nomination centre and announced that he was no longer interested in going to State House.
Exhausted and sweaty, he assisted himself to free groundnuts and a water provided by ECZ before leaving.
However, if any ECZ staff thought they had watched the last episode of the show, they were wrong as Kalabi reappeared at 16:30 hours, 30 minutes before closing with white VVTI Toyota Corolla staffed with 9 people, himself inclusive, and told ECZ that he was now ready and would be ferrying supporters.
He left the 8 supporters and returned to collect the remaining 82 in the same corolla.
However, at UNZA bus station, traffic cops impounded the corrola for not having road tax, insurance and an unlicensed driver.
This calamity forced President Kalabi to walk back to Mulungushi and beg ECZ to extend the closing time to today so that he can negotiate with police to release the taxi and it’s driver so that they could ferry supporters; a request ECZ granted him.
Not to be outdone by a new comedian, another ‘President’ also leaped on the stage and performed.
Nasoni Msoni of All Peoples Congress (APC) also failed to raise supporters.
After sending his aide to buy him K10 airtime and make So Che minutes for him, he frantically made calls to people to come and support him but everyone said they were on the way.
Tail between legs, he also went to ECZ and asked to be booked today to allow his busload of supporters make its long journey from Kabwata to Mulungushi; he too was granted the extension.
Later, President Msoni spoke to the media and offered to make an alliance with PF on grounds that he is given some ministerial positions for his excutive members as he had supporters to help PF win.
When asked which supporters he would bring to PF since he couldn’t even manage 100 for his nomination, he said they were a lot and were just delayed from Kabwata from morning till 17 00 hours.
©Kalemba