TONSE WILL USE A REGISTERED PARTY IN AUGUST POLLS – MUNDUBILE
TONSE Alliance faction president Brian Mundubile says the alliance will use a special purpose vehicle to contest the 2026 general election.
On Sunday, Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) Chief Electoral Officer Brown Kasaro said all political alliances were supposed to register with the Registrar of Societies if they wanted to contest in an election.
Commenting on the remarks in an interview, Tuesday, Mundubile said the alliance would campaign as Tonse Alliance but would use a registered political party in the general elections.
“We take note of that as Tonse Alliance, we take note of that. In our case, and our resolve is that the alliance will use a special purpose vehicle, which is a registered political party, to take part in elections. So, the decision that we made previously regarding our future is to make the Tonse Alliance safe. Of course, we will campaign as an alliance, but when it comes to fielding a candidate, we will field a candidate as a special purpose vehicle,” he said.
When asked if they had already chosen a political party, Mundubile responded in the negative, adding that the council of leaders would soon meet to discuss the selection of the party.
“No, that is yet to come. The council of leaders will soon sit to look at the special purpose vehicles within the alliance, and then one of them will be chosen to be the special purpose vehicle,” Mundubile said.
Commenting on Kasaro’s remarks that candidates must only use campaign materials and symbols of the party under which they have filed nominations, Mundubile argued that there was no law restricting candidates.
“Well, there is no law that would stop you because, let us take for instance, in certain areas, due to high poverty levels, the same regalia they were given by MMD during RB’s time, those are the only clothes they have to wear. So, if they showed up at the rally with that, what offence are they committing? So, really, there is no law that would stop people from wearing what they like while campaigning for other candidates.
We know the intention. The intention is that our friends in the UPND actually have sleepless nights over PF. So, they know that PF is a force to reckon with. They know that the late president Lungu’s images resonate very well with the people. So, in trying to frustrate that, they give out those guidelines,” said Mundubile.
“So, I think what most parties have done, they simply ignore ECZ on that, because there is really no law that they have to punish political parties. In any case, who do you punish? If people of their own, 2,000 people show up with t-shirts of their choice bearing another political party but supporting a candidate who is on stage, who are you going to punish at that stage?”
News Diggers