UPND CENTRAL PROVINCE YOUTH CHAIRMAN- HONOURABLE MILNER MWANAKAMPWE, BEMOANS ILL DECISION OF RUNNING VOTER REGISTRATION CENTRES IN THE NIGHT BY ECZ.
As United party for national development, we do realise and note with sadness that ECZ has increased the number of hours that are supposed to be done when registering as voters. What ECZ has done, I bet without consulting the key stakeholders is to increase the number of registration hours so that people can be registering as voters throughout the night and throughout the day as commendable as that gesture might be, we do realise that it leaves alot of room for manipulation and we do not know what might be happening from either sides in the we hours of the night in the registration centres.
There are no known zambians who can brave the cold nights, rain nights and begin to go and cue up to vote in the night. For us really we want to say that ECZ is blunt to begin registering people throughout the night is something that is a bit suspicious to state. As a matter of fact, we do not realise and do not believe that registration should be done in the night.
We therefore recommend that in consultation with the key stakeholders is to make sure that all the 9000 registration centres are opened as a matter of urgency and then give performance benchmarks where you say per centre in a day atleast 150 people should be registered but if you want to leave it open throughout the night then it’s something that is going to remain prone to manipulation by any other persons who might want to be overzealous or may want to do something wrong.
So our appeal really is that we do not want to think that the issue of registering at night is a welcome move. As young people we want to strongly appeal to ECZ again that they must as a matter of urgency, since manpower is readily available, let them open all registration centres. The manpower they want to use for shifts should be transferred to other registration centres so that they are fully and effectively operational.
Unless if ECZ wants to tell the zambian people that they are not adequately prepared, did not prepare thoroughly and lack adequate machinery that is something that will be looked at from a different view and perspective, unlike the situation where they want to tell people that they should start registering in the night.
The night is unconducive and alot of things happen and we do not want to see a situation where someone wants to rig elections whilst we watch. We demand total transparency and pure accountability in the dealings of ECZ.
ECZ is a people’s body not a body of any political party. It is an independent zambian people’s body that must be all ears to the voices of stakeholders and all the 17 million residents of Zambia. As the young people in the United party for national development we say that must not be done in unison and all 8998 registration centres must be opened and give clear registration benchmarks.
That’s our demand.
ZAMBIA WAKE UP!!!!
CIC PRESS TEAM