By Macdonald Chipenzi
SOME ELECTIONS WILL HELD AFTER AUGUST 12 GENERAL ELECTION-ECZ: LET US DISSECT THIS STATEMENT.
When I say this is the most complex, legally, operatipnally and strucurally to conduct and manage in history, it is not just a talk but a reality.
Legal jargons have created an impression that ECZ does not know what it is doing as it tries to accommodate legal deficits in the law in its operations.
ECZ PRM Patricia Luhanga disclosed in the Diggers Newspaper for June 27, 2021 that some elections caused by death, resignation or disqualification of duly nominated candidates whose election must be conducted within 30 days from the fresh nomination outside to the election date would be held after the General Election.
Ideally and practically, the reasoning is correct and morally right since once the ballot papers are printed, it is difficult to hold fresh nominations but only to cancel the affected election.
This is the practice the country used to adhere to before the application of Article 52(6) became a hot issue especially during this General Election.
Article 52(6) demands cancellation of the concerned election due to death, disqualification or resignation of dully nominated candidates as has been done to Mpulungu, Lusaka Central, Mandevu, Kasenengwa etcetera and the holding of fresh nominations and election within 30 days from nomination date.
These are nominations that are cancelled when a candidate resigns, disqualified or dies after the close of nominations and before the election date for the August General Election.
Though the time framework for holding fresh nominations is not stipulated after the cancellation of an election to fill in a nomination vacancy due to resignation, disqualification and death of a candidate occurring after the close of nomination and before the election date, which is a lacuna, election are to be held within 30 days after this untimed fresh nomination.
With this provision, the conflict will arise between the by-election clause which is Art 57(1) to fill vacancy created by death, resignation or disqualification of an elected candidate and the nomination clause which is Article 52(6) dealing with resignation, disqualification or death of a dully nominated but not yet elected candidate.
In as much as Article 52 demands election to be held within 30 days after fresh nominations are held, Art 57 demands holding of an election within 90 days from the date the vacancy fell due.
So, which Article will the ECZ apply after the August General Election to an election that will arise due to death, resignation or disqualification of a candidate after the close of nomination and before the election date of the General Election, is it the nomination Article 52(6) or by-election Article 57(1)?
If it is Article 57 (1), it will not be applicable as the candidates and vacancies to be filled will not be for a by-election occasioned by the death, resignation or disqualification of an elected candidate but resignation, death and disqualification of a dully nominated candidate for the August General Election which happened after the close of nomination and before the election date.
The election ECZ wants to hold after General Election will be triggered or occasioned by the death, resignation or disqualification a dully nominated candidate and election held within 30 days after fresh nominations and not as a result of vacancy in an elected candidate.
There lies a legal conflict and jargon.
I submit