OPPOSITION Alliance spokesperson Charles Milupi says there is no way President Edgar Lungu can win next year’s elections if the Electoral Commission of Zambia does the right thing.
Milupi, who is also Alliance for Democracy and Development leader, has indicated that the opposition alliance is looking forward to free and fair general elections in 2021.
“All we are looking forward to is to have free and fair elections. That is why we are putting pressure on the Electoral Commission of Zambia to do the right thing. If the right thing is done, there is no way Mr Lungu can win at all,” he said.
“But if they depend on rigging and manipulating of results, that’s a different matter. But if we make sure that everything is transparent, there is no way Mr Lungu can beat anyone in the opposition alliance. Even PF itself, I don’t think they will nominate him (President Lungu) as a candidate.”
The ADD leader described assertions that the opposition was afraid of President Lungu’s candidature as mere ‘posturing’ by those in the PF.
“They are just posturing, we hear of so many senior people in PF that are already positioning themselves to do something different; we know that,” he said.
He clarified that it was not the opposition that was saying President Lungu does not qualify to contest next year, but the law.
“It is the Constitution; eminent constitutional lawyers have stated very clearly that he does not qualify. State Counsel (John) Sangwa has explained clearly that the Constitution says a person who has held office twice cannot contest. Anyone knows that President Lungu held office from 2015 to 2016 and held office from 2016 to date. But how the Constitution can be interpreted differently? I don’t know,” Milupi said.
He insisted that the judgment of the Constitutional Court on President Lungu’s eligibility to contest the 2021 elections was very clear.
“The Constitutional Court said that in terms of the eligibility, they had not made a ruling on that. In Zambia, we don’t read; we just debate even when we can read very short articles like the judgment of the Constitutional Court. At no time did they say that President Lungu is eligible to stand. So what the opposition alliance is doing is following the law. If the law says you can’t stand, you can’t stand,” he said.
Milupi believes President Lungu would be the easiest candidate to defeat because in townships and villages people were totally fed up with his leadership.
“So anyone who says the opposition alliance is afraid of Mr Lungu because he is a very strong candidate, first of all, he is a very weak candidate, Zambians react to how they are treated,” he said.
“When you are making an interpretation of the defence of the Constitution, you don’t look at who is weak and who is strong; you look at what the law says. The Constitution says he cannot stand because he has held office twice. Even himself, if he has any love for the country, he would say ‘yes, I have done my part; things haven’t gone so well. Let me go and rest (and) let someone else take up the mantle.’”
Milupi said a crisis would be created by the PF President Lungu prevails to remain in power owing to him being a boss of the electoral body and forces it to accept his nomination as there would be a flood of petitions on that.
“At that time the court will come up with a ruling that Mr lungu does not qualify and PF will not have a candidate because the nomination period would have closed and they will not allow their party not to have a candidate,” Milupi said.
” The PF will not allow a situation where by the candidate that they will put up will be disqualified by the court of law. You will not hear lawyers saying Mr Lungu qualifies, they are saying the opposite because that’s what the law says.”
Meanwhile, on President Lungu’s contemplation to set up a commission of inquiry on the chemical gassing incidents in the country, Milupi wondered how the Head of State could think of doing such when all he needed to do was to act on a report based on the findings of the Office of the President.
“He cannot articulate himself on gassing, he cannot tell us what is going on, he comes up with this statement that he wants to put up a Commission of Inquiry about gassing! He does not need to spend money on this commission of inquiry; he needs to call the Office of the President, Special Division. They already have reports, I am sure he also has a report,” said Milupi.
“Act on the reports from the OP. The reason we are talking about a commission of inquiry and so on…. These are delaying tactics because they know who is involved. Their scheme to implicate the opposition has immensely backfired. Looking at the people who have been arrested for this gassing, who are they? Are they not associated with the same people in power? How can you run a country like that and you think that Zambians love these people so much that we in the opposition alliance could be afraid of them?”