NEVERS Mumba says the Electoral Commission of Zambia has many sin, which have not started today but run over the years.
And Mumba says: “ECZ is not our master; it is servant of the Zambian people”.
The MMD leader spokes this on a Muvi Television programme hosted by Innocent Phiri.
He said having been in politics for 24 years, he was aware of the dangers Zambia and Africa face in coming to a place where they could elect leaders of their choice and how significant it was for Zambians to end up with leaders who they casts votes for.
He said no Zambian his age had forgotten the Gabonese referee, Diramba, who cost Zambia a crucial world cup qualifier against Senegal owing to the unfair manner he handled the game.
Mumba illustrated that it does not matter how well one prepared for a soccer game, and how good the coach or lines men are, if the referee was compromised and not a fair arbitrator, all preparations and good play could be wasted.
“The Electoral Commission of Zambia is the referee for the next election and our concentration must be to ensure that it is a worthwhile mediator or invigilator of the elections that are going to take place next year,” Mumba said. “I say this to the Patriotic Front, the opposition, civil society organisations, it’s our collective responsibility to solve this problem now so that we have peace and prosperity beyond 2021. We must convince ourselves that the Electoral Commission of Zambia is an impartial body that takes the interests of Zambians on board and those who question the ECZ should not be called unpatriotic. To the contrary, they are the patriotic Zambians.”
Mumba challenged Zambians to protect the country from unnecessary drawbacks of conflict and going backwards instead of moving forward.
He said it was in the interest of the nation to have a credible electoral process.
“Some of us, our background is that of church, I joined politics to pursue politics of morality and integrity and I would never make it in a situation where corruption is the name of the game because I will not be corrupt in my political career, I will not choose to use corrupt means to win an election. So if we don’t work on this fair system, to have a fair system, some of us who don’t have a corrupt background might find it difficult to win an election in this country,” Mumba said. “So it is also in our interest, those of us that want to bring equitable politics into place to ensure that we fight for a system that makes a pastor like myself, contest an election and win. When people say No Nevers can’t win an election, they are not saying Nevers is not the best presidential candidate or the person to be president beyond 2021…a lot of people believe that, they know me for 40 years in public life, they know what I can do, they know what I have done in the past, they know that I am going to make a good president but the question they ask is how is he going to navigate through a corrupt electoral system when he doesn’t know how to use such a corruption to get ahead? And I am not the only one, there are many other political leaders that want to do a clean campaign and ensure that Zambians get what they deserve.”
Mumba said the integrity of next year’s election and the capacity of Zambians to accept the result without any petition or noise depends on the confidence people deposit in the ECZ.
He said the biggest job for ECZ was to acquire a higher level of confidence of stakeholders.
“Look at it this way; we are now talking about online voter registration, Electoral Commission of Zambia has many sins that they have committed over the years, and they have not just started committing those sins now, even when we were in government the Electoral Commission was accused of many things…but the biggest sin of the Electoral Commission is a lack of consultation with the stakeholders,” he said.
Mumba noted that the ECZ was empowered by the constitution to manage the country’s elections but that does not mean the electoral process was the most sensitive on the African continent.
He said any commissioner of the electoral body must understand that they were in a seat that could determine peace or lack of it in the nation.
Mumba said the only way for ECZ to be useful to Zambians was through consultations with stakeholders.
“And this Electoral Commission is finding it very difficult to consult and to move together with stakeholders. I will give you an example. You can go some months back, the Electoral Commission of Zambia felt that they didn’t have the money and they decided that they will no longer take representatives from political parties to go and witness the printing of ballot papers, they bulldozed that through and they went ahead. Then came the issue of nomination fees. They meet alone somewhere without talking to us and they throw at us new nomination fees. They bulldosed this through…they came again and said they want to get rid of the old register, I am not gonna get into the illegality of that constitutionally, I will show you how powerful the ECZ has become. The ECZ is not our master, it’s not the master of the Zambian people; it is the servant of the Zambian people. And if the commissioners, all of them, understand that principle that they are not our masters, they are servants. Point number two, they must understand that if they don’t bring consensus, and bring all of us together, the insecurity that becomes part of our country would be as a result of their carelessness. So because of that they should seek consensus.”
Mumba said the ECZ also came up with the idea of erasing the current voters register and allocated 30 days to capture nine million voters.
“Okay, you do not need to be educated, a child who is five years old will ask a question; ‘how are you going to capture nine million voters in 30 days when [you] used to have three months and extended to six months and we couldn’t capture 3 million?’ I believe in miracles but certain miracles are not the ones the bible teaches,” Mumba said.
He said the ECZ was not the player but an administrative body for “us who are players in the political field”.
He said he was opposed to the online voter registration exercise owing to information that he had that going that direction “we might as well fold our political blankets and go over there and start farming because we know that the election may not be free and fair.”
Mumba advised the PF, as stakeholder in the electoral process to fight with the opposition to have an equitable electoral process.
“Listen, the job of Diramba was to be fair to Zambia and Senegal. Senegal would not always play it right, they would want to be crooked in order to win; Zambia is also trying to be crooked, they want to win. So the on us falls on the referee to be able to say ‘Zambia, no’ that’s a penalty’; ‘Senegal no, that’s a tackle, I am going to give my free kick’. But if ECZ sees that PF dribbles wrongly and creates a fake penalty and they give it to PF to score, then we have no power; we have to deal with Diramba and Diramba must bow. Diramba must either change or be changed. This is our crusade as MMD,” he said. “There is no joy for voters in 2021 until we deal with the issue of ECZ. It’s not a small matter, it’s a determinant factor for peace and for the unity of this country and enjoyment of life of the people if they went to an election and it gave them what they voted for.”
Mumba said if the ECZ approached the stakeholders and poured out their inadequacies in conduct satisfactory elections, they were not unpatriotic to dismiss them.
He said the 2021 election has “started now”.
He said the process for election was won or lost today.
Mumba said if the electoral process was not right, the result of 2021 elections were predetermined.
He said the issue of dead voters being removed from the register should not be used against stakeholders because the moment they are removed, others die.
Mumba suggested that once one registers as a voter, they should remain so until they die or other circumstances necessitate their removal.
He said ECZ might have a point but it was not talking with stakeholders, which breeds suspicions.
Mumba said it was unfortunate to treat stakeholders like animals on a leash, be told where to go.
He said the ECZ would not succeed on its current trajectory.
He said he was strong on the issue because of manipulations of elections in Africa.
He said in many African countries, elections were “a joke, a hoax”.
“As we speak today, I was talking to another Presidential candidate in another country where they are facing an election. Today, that presidential candidate received results of the election, which has not yet taken place. They just told him these are the results that are going to come. He knows that it’s done; the elections have not taken place but the results are out! But I asked him how do you know that? He said when the parliamentary elections took place, they gave us the results of the election before people voted and the results were exactly the same when they came out, so we have no reason to believe this coming election will be any different’,” Mumba illustrated.
He said he and the MMD want to fight for the vote as it was the only thing that gives the poor man the same power and right as the rich man.
“Next year’s election is very critical. Many elections this year and next year are in Africa and the reason my voice is strong on this is because what is happening in Zambia is happening in many countries and we must understand that a lot of interest from international community to interfere with electoral processes on the African continent and we must defend ourselves,” Mumba said.
“We do not have any individual dislike for any member of the ECZ, we don’t, these are Zambians entrusted with a huge responsibility to transition leadership from one leadership to the next. Our fight is that let them respect us that we are the stakeholders. If there is a problem with football, FIFA works with FAZ, it works with all the football fraternity to resolve the issue. That is the fraternity of football. This is the fraternity of elections. If we cannot participate in it and we are just being told, how will there be peace? All I am asking the ECZ is that we respect you as people tasked with this task but please do not arm-twist us, sit with us, we are not children.”
On his statement that PF had purchased equipment to hack into ECZ savers, Mumba said the matter was now under investigation and he could not comment on it.
He said he had given the police the information they needed and he would not interfere in its investigations.
“All I can say to the Zambian people is wait and see what’s gonna happen,” he said.
He said he had great confidence the police would do a great job.
Mumba said there was no need for him to accuse police that they would not do anything with the information he gave them.
He said no Zambian should be intimidated or criminalised for asking questions he is asking.
Mumba said his value does not come from election outcomes but from God.
“I know I will make a good president when my time comes because I know who I am, I know how God has prepared me for 44 years,” said Mumba. “I am not fighting PF, PF is not God, PF came today and it will go tomorrow, it’s not permanent, just like MMD.”