UNTOLD STORIES Part II
By Brian HAPUNDA
This particular footage was captured at a polling station in Monze, Southern Province on the day of voting 🗳 on 12th August, 2021.
Unfortunately the pattern was same in most polling stations across Southern Province where some UPND members and UPND cadres took turns to beat, intimidate and chase away all election polling agents and election monitors from other political parties leaving only UPND polling agents and UPND election monitors and the voting continued as if nothing had happened.
I remember I joined President Lungu at State Lodge soon after I had cast my vote at UNZA Sports Hall. I spent the whole day with him. He received numerous intelligence briefs as per procedure of what was transferring across the country on that voting day. Of most disturbing reports were coming from Southern and North Province.
President Lungu was well briefed of the political violence that was taking place in most polling stations and centres in Southern Province and North Western Province where PF polling agents and other polling agents from opposition parties were being chased away from polling stations and stopped to monitor the voting exercise. Police officers watched helplessly and some Police officers actually ran away from these police stations for safety.
President Lungu’s phones were buzzing constantly and most calls were distress calls of what was happening in Southern Province and North Western Province. The Party Secretary General then Davis Mwila was also on constant phone with President Lungu and at about 10am, President Lungu received another distress call from his Party Secretary General and this time a few seconds into the phone conversation, President Lungu stood up from where he was sitting while talking on phone and took a few steps away and he was quite for some few minutes on phone listening to the caller.He returned to his seat and said, “Kungo nabepaya ku Solwezi kuli ma UPND cadres as he was distributing food stuffs to PF polling agents at a named polling station”. Kungo was PF Provincial Chairman for North Western Province.
At this point President Lungu was advised if he could consider cancelling the elections owing to the numerous political violence that had rocked the general elections making the elections not free, fair and transparent. He kept quite for a while and in his usual soft calm voice he responded and said, “if I cancelled this election as Commander in Chief, bantu bengi balafwa”! If I cancelled this election as Commander in Chief, alot of people will die and I don’t want to have blood on my hands.
To be President is not easy. One has to be very sober and one must love the people more than him/herself.
The rest is history as we all saw for ourselves what happened when results started being announced and in what pattern the results were in especially in Southern Province, Western and North Western Province.