VOTER REGISTRATION EXTENSION NOT ENOUGH – KALABA
CITIZENS First Leader Harry Kalaba says the two-week voter registration extension announced by the Electoral Commission of Zambia is not enough.
Speaking when he featured on Emmanuel Mwamba’s podcast, Kalaba said the voter registration should have been extended up to January 2026.
“How can Lusaka city have more than five million people? Now if you have 31,000 people who have registered from Lusaka city, you’re already having voter apathy even before you even go and cast your vote. This gimmick of wanting to weaken regions where the UPND think they might not win as much, I’m appealing to them on this programme, the two weeks that you have done as an extension is not even enough, first of all.
I think for me, because of the cumbersome way you are running the exercise, you should have allowed this to go on even up to January because right now this exercise was introduced during the rainy season. It was also a deliberate ploy.
You bring it during the rainy season [when] people have got challenges moving from place to another polling station, and people are being systematically disenfranchised. The Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) has a duty to make sure that every eligible person goes to register,” he said.
Kalaba urged the ECZ to do the right thing by refraining from trying to please the UPND.
“My only advice to ECZ is do what is right. There’s no need for them to please the sitting gentlemen and women right now in power. If the way Mr Hakainde Hichilema is trying to patronise the Electoral Commission of Zambia was the way the former regime was running affairs of government, Mr Hichilema would not have even come into government, but the process was so evenly distributed.
What is wrong with them doing that which is right? When he swore to defend the Constitution of Zambia, it was for him to defend the rights of every Zambian in every part of this country. How can he hear the complaints that we’re making and nobody from the government has even made a statement concerning this voter suppression exercise which is going on?” he asked.
“I think the Electoral Commission of Zambia has not behaved properly. And this is what we’ve all said about the ECZ. We have said it, and I will say it here on this platform: if madam Mwangala Zaloumis and her team had any credibility to go with, they should not even be at the Electoral Commission of Zambia. Because the ECZ is not an extension of the UPND and we’re not going to allow that. Obviously, I also went to check on the ground.
I was in Mkushi, I was in Luapula, Kabwe, I was in Chingola, I was in Solwezi last time. I saw for myself, [I was] not being told. In the areas where the UPND are not strong or in the areas where the UPND think they might not get as many votes as they think they should get, the ECZ has not taken the requisite materials there”.
Meanwhile, Kalaba charged that the lack of a rebuttal from the Head of State regarding Bweengwa MP Michelo Kasauta’s remarks on cadreism meant the comments had his blessings.
“It’s indeed a very sad time in our country, and what is making it more sad is that I have not heard the President, or the Vice President, or any senior official rebut the statement that Michelo Kasauta, my brother who I was with in Parliament, was making. Meaning the statement that Michelo has said has the blessings of President Hakainde Hichilema. So many statements have been made: fire the police, cadreism is back. We politicians are bad students of history because what Michelo has said we’re going to use widely is that the UPND has introduced cadreism in this country,” said Kalaba.
“They campaigned against it. PF lost power because of cadreism, and Michelo coming from Bweengwa, exactly where he’s coming from, I think he humiliates the President. He takes away everything that the President had promised the country, that there will be no cadreism.
For him to announce from a Constituency where the President comes from clearly, he’s telling us that he has heard from the President, the President has told him cadreism has to come back, and our people have said no to cadreism because they have said so the UPND will also be punished. What is so special about the UPND that they should go ahead with what the people have called an abomination?”
News Diggers