Thursday, March 28, 2024

NGOCC opposed to holding referendum together with elections

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Sara Longwe
Sara Longwe

The NGOCC says it is opposed to the holding of the national referendum together with elections on the 11th August,2016.

Speaking during the Women’s Day celebrations NGOCC Board Chairperson Sara Longwe said holding the referendum together with the elections would bring confusion to the voters.

“NGOCC strongly calls on government to ensure that measures are put in place to ensure that the National Referendum is held quickly to adopt the expanded bill of rights which strongly will make us improve the status of women and girls in Zambia.

” As an organization we are however opposed to the idea of holding the Referendum together with the general elections it will cause confusion as there is already,” she said.

Ms Longwe also called on government to quickly realign the gender equality bill which was passed by parliament recently to the amended Constitution.

“Further on NGOCC calls on the government especially the ministry of Gender to quickly realign the gender equity and equality bill passed by parliament recently to the amended and approved through an independent and autonomous gender equity and equality commission. We believe that this commission will ensure that gender will be main streamed in both private and public sectors. We further ask our dear President Mr Edgar Lungu to ascent to this bill because it will assist to minimise discrimination,” she noted.

Meanwhile Ms Longwe has called on President Edgar Lungu to firmly deal with the increase political violence.

She said the low numbers in women participation in politics is partly because of political violence hence the need for both the ruling and opposition political parties to curb the vice.

And speaking at the same function UN country Coordinator Janet Rogan called on women to stop viewing themselves as victims of circumstances.

She said women should emancipate themselves from the shackles of gender discrimination adding that the forth coming general elections offers a great opportunity for women in the country to advance themselves.

She said women should not give excuses for not doing things which are dominated by men as women are the backbones of many house holds and are capable of doing anything they set their mind to.

On the continued misapplication of the Public Order Act Ms Rogan called on the police and the opposition to meet and find amicable ways of applying the the Act.

She said the continued misapplication of the Public Order Act is contributing to the increase in political violence which a turn off to women participation in politics.

Meanwhile Gender Minister Nkandu Luo challenged women to fill up the gap and rise up and be counted.

10 COMMENTS

  1. Concur @mphendula
    Some of our female leaders are full of male hormones and less of female as in Longwe’s conduct. We want Women Leaders as described by Rogan, that stand on strength based on capability. I don’t agree with her stand on POA. In an idealistic world we can have opposition agreeing with gov’t of the day on how to control their excesses in their drive to win! POA must stay and we need strong action by Police in controlling people who want to operate outside the law. The laws must be strong enough to empower Authorities. Weak laws lead to Authorities appealing to the good nature of overly ambitious people. The nature of man is to try to conquer at all cost, so a weakened POA(or absence of it) won’t work.

    Luo’s message is on point and shows her strong Leadership…

  2. Luo’s message is on point and shows her strong Leadership qualities. There is no duality in her message, just precise delivery of one idea. She’ll make an excellent VP as any other agreeable PF ladies.

  3. NGOCC go and educate the people do they know how to avoid that confusion you are talking about. Referendum is costly to be held separate from general elections. Actually the idea is to capture as many voters as possible in order to meet the 50%+1 requirement for the referendum. We can’t afford lossing colossal sums of kwacha for a constitution which has slim chances of going through looking at the numbers who may shun to participate.

  4. Efforts once I agree 100% with NGOCC and Sarah Longwe. I have been thinking about it myself and I am glad there are people who think like me on the subject of holding a referendum together with ther other elections on 11 August. The tripartite elections are too important and the stakes are too high to hold together with a referendum. The elections are highly partisan and prone to violence; the violence may make affect the turnout and render the referendum null and void on account of turnout as it requires more than 50% of registered voters to vote in order to be valid; up to now the majority of voters do not know what the subject of the referendum is, all they know is that it is about PF and UPND; no one has started any education campaign to sensitize people what the choices in the…

  5. .. no one has started any education campaign to sensitize people what the choices in the referendum are; even if there was such a campaign the message would not get through because of the Atmosphere; under these circumstances holding the referendum together with tripartite elections will actually turn out to be a waste of money as it will not achieve the intended purpose. It will actually turn out cheaper to postpone the referendum to a later date. As a nation we can decide when to hold the referendum, we can consider the costs and whether we can afford it soon after or we can wait for a suitable time when we can afford it. Surely it is not an emergency at all. On behalf of Sarah Longwe, myself and other concerned silent majority, I implore our beloved and courageous President Edgar…

  6. ..On behalf of Sarah Longwe, myself and other concerned silent majority, I implore our beloved and courageous President Edgar Chagwa Lungu to exercise his usual wisdom and postpone the referendum, he can sit down with the church, NGOCC, opposition parties, and others to make the decision so that it is not politicized. Surely as Zambians we can make wise decisions for our beloved nation. I am sure that all Zambians who care about this country will agree with the proposal to hold the referendum later.

  7. There are always people opposing & planting seeds of fear even where the cause is clearly noble. President Lungu has already shown exemplary leadership on the new Constitution outshining even those who boasted to know better while insulting him. Everyone is now quoting the new Constitution because that is when they have realised that it is about the greatest gift of improved governance that Zambia has ever received. Now the same people are it again & opposing the referendum for the Bill of Rights together with the general election when both involve the same process & can be efficiently held @ the same time.

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