HH’s PAPERS WERE NOT IN ORDER AND THAT CAUSED THE DELAY DURING FILING IN OF NOMINATIONS – ECZ
THE Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) has denied allegations by UPND leader Hakainde Hichilema that there was pressure to disqualify him from contesting the forthcoming general elections.
And the Commission has announced that 16 of the 20 aspiring presidential candidates have successfully filed in their nomination papers while three have withdrawn from the race after paying K95,000.
On Wednesday, Hichilema alleged that the Commission delayed to process his documents because they were under pressure to disqualify him.
“Thank you to ECZ I know, and I think we all know the pressures they were under in order to disqualify us but it was not possible. We must thank these people they are under pressure from us in the political arena but we ask them to remain strong, to continue doing that which is right for the people of Zambia. It has been a bit lengthy I am not sure why but we endured it. We thank the people of Zambia who have been extremely anxious, they have heard a lot, they have seen a lot of road blocks. Trying to keep us away from this day. But the people of Zambia have remained strong in their belief that this day when we shall our presidential nomination will come, and indeed it has come,” said Hichilema.
But addressing journalists at the close of the nomination process, ECZ chief electoral officer Patrick Nshindano said it was unfortunate that Hichilema claimed that the Commission was under pressure to disqualify him.
“With regards to the allegations by the UPND president Mr Hakainde Hichilema that the Commission was under pressure to disqualify his nomination, that is far from the truth and it’s very unfortunate. The Commission did contact the UPND agents to bring the documents in good time of which they refused to do so and preferred to come with the documents when they were filing in,” he said.
“And when they did, in the preprocessing, the documents were not in order and they had to be accommodated for them to ensure that the documents were in order. The Commission was at no point under pressure from anybody and the Commission will remain an independent, an autonomous body as provided for in the constitution. And will undertake its mandate diligently as per law and will not be influenced by any individual or institution.”
Nshindano went on to name the candidates who did not file in their nominations.
“We had 20 paid up candidates out of which 16 successfully filed their nomination papers for the 2021 presidential election. Out of those, we have three who were unable and withdrew from the race. The first include All People’s Congress party leader Mr Nason Msoni whose preprocessing was incomplete and also did not submit nomination documents. We also had Mr Peter Chanda New Congress Party who officially withdrew from the nomination process. We also had Mr Felix Mutati from MDC whose preprocessing was incomplete and later officially withdrew from the nomination process. And lastly Mr Kalabi who was unsuccessful as he did not meet the number of required supporters,” Nshindano said.
When asked if it was automatic that the 16 presidential candidates would be on the ballot paper, Nshindano said it was not final.
“This is not the final stage, the law does provide for petitions. So we have seven days within which anybody can raise an issue on the candidates that have filed successfully and within that, if there is nothing, then the Commission will proceed to print the ballot papers. If indeed there is somebody who raises an issue to petition the nomination, that petition will have to be heard within 21 days. So this is not final,” he responded.
Meanwhile, Justice Esau Chulu officially closed the nomination process. -News Diggers