UPND WINNING WITH OVER 1 MILLION VOTES IS WISHFUL THINKING – MULUSA
FORMER Minister of National Planning and Development Lucky Mulusa says the idea of UPND winning next year’s election with over a million votes is wishful thinking.
Mulusa further says Infrastructure, Housing and Urban Development Minister Charles Milupi is misleading President Hakainde Hichilema.
Recently, Milupi said with the mushrooming of many people vying for the presidency in the coming elections, the gap between the UPND presidential candidate and the nearest rival would be a lot wider than it was in 2021.
In an interview, Saturday, Mulusa said elections in Zambia have usually been between the top two candidates and therefore, it doesn’t matter how many candidates participate.
“That is wishful thinking. Any political analyst who has followed Zambia’s electoral history will notice that more often than not, regardless of how many political parties are contesting, the electorate apportions votes to only two candidates.
The rest usually get less than the number of spoiled votes. We’ve had as many as 14 candidates standing for the presidency, but the voters have never ever distributed themselves amongst all the 14. Usually, it has always been between the top two candidates, and the rest would be getting less than one per cent. So, it doesn’t matter how many political parties would be there or how many candidates would be there. The fact of the matter is only two, and at most three candidates will get votes worth anything,” he said.
Asked on the chances of the opposition closing the gap the UPND won with in 2021 and winning next year, Mulusa said if the electoral environment is made uniform, the opposition is capable of beating the ruling party.
“If the electoral environment is made uniform and perfect, the opposition is capable of beating the current ruling party. But the electoral environment is not free and fair. You notice that there’s been more voter registration in Southern province, a smooth running of voter registration in the province for a long period of time before the same exercise was started in other places in the country. And even at the moment with the [mass] voter registration, people changing voting polling stations and that kind of stuff has been implemented, it’s full of problems,” he responded.
“You go there, either they don’t have power or the machines are not working. And yet the same exercise was being taken in the strongholds of the UPND, and the machines were perfect, everybody was being paid, and there were more voter awareness campaigns than we are seeing right now. If the environment were to be made free and fair, I don’t think the UPND would have any chance of coming back.
I mean, the citizens are already talking, they’re already complaining. And even the President himself has acknowledged that according to the information he has received, his MPs are going to lose, and his councillors are going to lose. But he’s being told nicely that he himself will go through. And he’s pleading for the voters to give him councillors and MPs to work with. But the mere fact that he has admitted that his councillors and MPs are going to fail is indicative enough that he has picked up on something that is close to reality on the ground”.
Mulusa said Milupi was misleading President Hichilema and only trying to attract favour from him, therefore making misplaced statements.
“Honourable Milupi is trying to attract unnecessary attention and favour for himself from his boss. So, he’s making those misplaced statements. These are the people that mislead the sitting president. They’ve been there before. RB was misled in a similar manner. ECL was misled in a similar manner, where they make you believe you are winning, but in fact not. People should concentrate on the negative sentiments on the ground and work on them, and not hear such praises. They just make you have some false sense of comfort. But the reality is different. People are not happy. People are suffering,” said Mulusa.
News Diggers
You have seen a vacancy in the pf faction group after the loud gong’s jailing hence your yapping so that you can identified and appointed.
Exactly! He has seen an opportunity to be appointed Secretaty General of PF after Nakachinda’s imprisonement. So, he has to make noise to be noticed. But, who can he tell that UPND cannot have 1 million votes?! Where will all the registered voters go especially with massive registration of voters going on? What a joke.
The claims that UPND’s MPs won’t win elections may not be hundred percent correct.As voters pick on President HH, they would still pick on UPND candidates.The opposition and independent candidates must realize that it will not be an easy battle.We don’t know who some candidates shall be.The high caliber opposition Presidential candidate to challenge HH is who?
There are a number of questions which we may not provide answers for consequently to pass judgements on the outcome of that election may be difficult.We predict that HH will win because we can’t see any candidates better than him for now.
Is it even worth listening to a loser? It’s not, Mulusa remains a loser because he can’t even win in his home village and he knows that he has no chance in UPND. If UPND managed to get more than 1 million votes whist in opposition and ousted the ruling PF, what will stop it from getting even more votes next year when it’s the one in office?Mind you defeating PF was not easy, it was a very big and difficult task for UPND but it managed. So the wishful thinking is with him and not UPND.