The utterances by PRISON Service Director General Dr Chisela Chileshe has triggered renewed fears of the practicality of implementation of prison voting in Zambia.
It is clear Dr Chisela Chileshe is a PF sympathiser and will not allow anyone not supporting his party and president to enter the correctional facilities where he is appointed to be in charge.
These are the fears we have had all along that prison vote will raise alot of electoral dust such as issues of accessibility to these facilities by other stakeholders in the electoral process such as political parties and NGOs perceived anti-PF.
Now that DG for this sector of the voting block has directed his officers NOT to allow anyone against President EDGAR CHAGWA LUNGU to enter these correctional facilities either to campaign or otherwise, how are the opposition going to enter these correctional facilities to canvass for support and what is ECZ’s position?
Unfortunately, this statement was said in front of President Lungu who did not censure his appointee and both President LUNGU and Dr Chisela Chileshe cannot be censured by ECZ.
Like we have said before and want to say it again, the prison vote ECZ wants to hastily implement is court for serious electoral confusion before and after 2021.
The prisons authorities have no obligation whatsoever to listen to ECZ as it is an independent institution with different reporting structure.
The issue of allowing those against President Lungu to enter these correctional facilities shall be discretionary and not mandatory which will disadvantage those perceived to be anti-PF and President Lungu.
This will clearly create uneven play field ahead of the 2021general election. It is time to reflect and not entertain this vote until things are in place and we remove partisanship in the DG Dr Chisela Chileshe.