ACTING Eastern Province PF chairperson Alexander Miti has asked voters in the area to ‘’thank President Edgar Lungu as their own” by giving him massive votes.
Miti said there was also no reason people in the region could not thank President Lungu for what he had done.
“The directive is that we are going to move because we want the President to get massive votes from the Eastern Province. We have always said, the President comes from this province, there is no reason why the people of the Eastern Province cannot say thank you to President Edgar Lungu, first of all as their own and secondly because of the developments that have taken place in the Eastern Province,” he told The Mast in an interview after watching the Head of State’s campaign launch virtually at Chipata College of Education.
“I don’t see any reason why the people of the Eastern Province cannot vote for the President massively. The province has 896,000 plus people registered as voters; we would like to ensure that we go down on the ground to campaign and make sure that people understand why they should campaign for the President and get the vote that is required.”
He appealed to party members and other organisations to walk with the ruling party.
“As you know, there is this issue of 50 plus one, we want the President to win first ballot. We don’t want a rerun, we want to campaign in such a manner that the President gets 50 plus one in the first ballot, then we shall be done,’’ Miti added. ‘’I want to appeal to the people of Eastern Province, party leaders and all organisations of good will to come along and walk with us, run with us so that we are able to do our campaign. My appeal has always been, let us campaign peacefully; no violence at all. I have also appealed to the youths to remain sober in the way they do their campaign. We don’t want violence, Zambia is a peaceful country, it should not be spoiled by overzealousness people who can put the country on fire.”
Miti also urged opposition political parties to carryout peaceful campaigns.
“As I appeal to the PF to campaign peacefully, I also want to appeal to other political stakeholders from other organisations, please let us maintain peace in these campaigns,” said Miti. “I have always said I am provincial chairman of the Patriotic Front, if my colleagues who are chairmen in other political parties see something wrong, let us dialogue and find solutions amicably instead of resorting to violence. We need to advise our people that the best way to campaign is to campaign peacefully, dialogue when there is a problem and move on peacefully as Zambians.”