HOW THE KABWATA BY-ELECTION WAS RIGGED
By Sean Tembo – PeP President
Step 1: Force a postponement of the election so that they can buy more time to put the rigging machinery into place. This was achieved by sponsoring the withdrawal of one candidate and subsequently the election date was pushed forward from 20th January 2022 to 3rd February 2022.
Step 2: Limit the number of Polling Assistants Seconded by Each Party. Ideally, each party is entitled to allocate two Polling Assistants per Polling Station. But under the excuse of the pandemic, ECZ restricted all political parties to seconding only a maximum of 12 polling assistants to monitor 131 polling stations. That meant that 119 polling stations were not monitored by any political party. Even the 12 that were manned were not adequately manned because you need two people per polling station and not one.
Step 3: Accredit Majority Friendly NGOs Only as Election Monitors. With the exception of CCMG, the other election monitors were largely known affiliates of UPND. This ensured that they tolled the line in rigging the election.
Step 4: Intimidate and Harass Political Party Representatives at Polling Stations. On Election Day, some opposition political parties like PF tried to protect their vote despite the limitation of 12 polling assistants only. This was done by sending party representatives to hang around the premises of the polling stations and observe from a distance if any malpractice was taking place. These were quickly identified and harassed out of the polling stations.
Step 5: A Collaboration between ECZ, Zambia Police and UPND. The three entities collaborated and conspired to identify and harass any defiant poll observers other than the 12 per political party. An example is the 6 PF members who were attacked by UPND cadres and then subsequently arrested by the Police on accusations of electoral malpractice, that they were buying votes at the Polling Station. And they made sure that the whole incident was filmed and shared widely on social media and traditional media. Who can surely buy votes at a polling station like you are buying tomatoes at the market? After the Police saw that the charge which they had given these 6 PF members did not make sense, they changed it from electoral malpractice to disturbing the peace. How can people who were just seated in their Landcruiser outside a polling station disturb the peace? That filmed dramatic arrest was designed to send fear to any other unofficial polling observers who were monitoring the election from a distance, across all the 131 polling stations.
Step 6: Manipulate the Vote. With 119 polling stations out of 131 cleared of any objective polling assistants and election observers, the UPND in collaboration with ECZ and the Zambia Police proceeded to manipulate the vote. This was achieved by ballot replacement at the time of counting. Votes for the opposition were replaced with pre-marked ballots in favour of the UPND candidate. However, they got carried away at Libala Secondary School Polling Station and took and replaced all the ballots that were cast in favour of the DP candidate; Mr Fred Mubanga. They forgot to leave at least one vote for him since he had undeniable proof that he had voted for himself.
Step 7: Allow Ineligible People to Vote in UPND Stronghold Wards: Out of the five wards in Kabwata Constituency being Kabwata, Libala, Chilenje, Kamwala and Kamulanga, the UPND knew that their stronghold was Kamulanga and they proceeded to allow ineligible voters there to cast their votes. Some voters had no voters card and only an NRC. Others had no NRC but only a voters card. While others neither had a voters card nor an NRC. They just bundled them in and allowed them to vote. These revelations are actually contained in the Poll Observer Report recently issued by CCMG, which is a reputable poll observer organization that is made up of ZCCB (Zambia Conference of Catholic Bishops) and CCZ ( Council of Churches in Zambia).
Step 8: With votes cast for various opposition candidates taken away from them and replaced with pre-marked ballots in favour of the UPND candidate, their co-conspirators the ECZ proceeded to announce the UPND candidate as the winner. We know that this is a formula which the UPND will perfect in the next 5 years and that is the reason why we are currently preparing to petition the Kabwata by-election in court where we shall prove the above allegations. It does not matter that if we had all the votes cast in our favour, we still might not have won the election. It’s a matter of principle for us.
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SET 10.02.2022