UNITED PARTY FOR NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT Lusaka Provincial Chairman Obvious Mwaliteta says the party will not allow the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) to bulldoze its electoral mandate without being accountable to the Zambian people.
Prison Voting came about after the Constitutional Court ordered the Government and the Electoral Commission of Zambia to allow inmates to start voting after Prison Care and Counselling Association Executive Director Godfrey Malembeka successfully sued the Attorney General in the Constitutional Court.
Following the case of Godfrey Malembeka (Prisons Care and Counselling Association – PRISCA) Vs Attorney General and ECZ in which the court held that prisoners’ right to vote should be upheld, and the Commission in fulfilling the ruling was required to undertake Prisoners Voting for 2021 general elections.
Speaking shortly after walking out of a stakeholder meeting on Prison voting yesterday afternoon, Mr. Mwaliteta said it was folly for the ECZ to ignore major stakeholders in the electoral process in coming up with a decision to allow prisoners to vote in the 2021 General Election.
Mr. Mwaliteta said a lot of issues remained unclear on how the ECZ intended to proceed with its plans to have inmates vote during the 2021 tripartite elections owing to the lack of a clear roadmap on how political players would conduct their campaigns in prisons.
“We are not saying that we are opposed to inmates voting in the 2021 elections, but what we are against is them (ECZ) giving us an example that in South Africa it is happening. It can’t work in Zambia because in South Africa the people who appoint the Commission General of Prisons is not the President,” he said.
He wondered how the ECZ would ensure free, fair, and credible 2021 elections if the opposition political parties were not allowed to campaign in prisons while being accused of planning to fane violence in correctional facilities.
“If political parties are not allowed to go and campaign in Chimbokaila, then we are not going to have a polling agent because we need to have a polling agent inside. But, also, suppose the Commissioner-General of the Zambia Correctional Services is given specific instructions by the appointing authority, how are we going to monitor our votes?” asked Mwaliteta.
The Lusaka UPND chief said the Elections body has the mandate to serve the interest of Zambian citizens without whom they wouldn’t have been established.
Mucheleka will strategically be campaigning from prison in 2021. Mwaliteta can also join the same campaign by getting himself incarcerated. Its good for Hichilema
The best really is for more UPND members to act as Jesus did. Sacrifice your souls for the sake of HH and get to fill the prison up ahead of 2021. You will get 80% prison vote. The DSG is already campaigning in prison
UPND these are your votes, you have Mucheleka the party vice secretary and others in prison. Thousands of UPND are imprisoned, let them vote.
I thought allowing Prisoners to vote was a court ruling on favour of PRISCA lead by Malembeka. Is ECZ expected to say no to the court ruling? Our political leaders need more to be desired.
Don’t walk out of meeting, just drive your point within the meeting!!
Walking out can never be a solution. From inside information, UPND has a bigger following in prison right now due to perceived selective ways in which inmates are pardoned. The other reason is the trial time it has taken some people. The prisons are not habitable currently. For me the PF has more to loose unless transperance is really a big issue.
Literary prisoners are not supposed to vote! Period. Why should prisoners have rights to vote, yet people with full rights the youths are being disenfranchised by government by not giving them Marc’s and a chance to register as voters? This is very strange. Why does the government always seem to have their priorities wrong all the time. They always take the opposite side of the right thing. Ever since you elected this humble man everything turned upside down. Get ride of Lungu, let him go and practice his law in chawama. He has caused so much pain in the nation by polarising every aspect of life. He is no different from ZUMA. #ENOUGHOFLUNGU#LUNGUMUSTGO
People must learn to contribute when they clearly understand the issue at hand. It is not president Lungu who directed that prisoners should vote but it was a ruling from the Constitutional Court and that is Law. We should not bring the name of the President in disrepute even where he was not involved in doing so.
Upnd should be sited for contempt of court. Is it ecz which brought in the idea of prisoners to start voting? Upnd should be serious for a change please.
Are we not told that the formalities for prison voting have not yet been worked out but what is UPND crying fault about? Prison voting is a court decision and going against it is an offence. What is needed now is to engage the ECZ to come up with moderities that will be fair to all stakeholders. This habit of walking out from every forum meant to discuss important issues is not solving any problem but rather aggrivates the problem. UPND must mature and learn to disloque if the country is to go forward. Don’t cheat yourselves to be the only ones with the wisdom to move the country foward.The only conclusion we can draw from your actions is that you’re dead scared of loosing in 2021 and hence the undue suspicions you are childishly exhibiting.
It is not worthy sacrificing ones family and happiness for the sake of Hichilema getting into power. Muchelekas family is now suffering while HH sees him as mobiliser in prison. Life is not fair.
The new UPND strategy is to commit criminal offences so they can get into prison, cry out louder about persecution but they want to just add numbers of voters in prison. Politics of sacrificing for one man are not worthy what the strategic paper they are written on. Look at how Mucheleka is sufferings
Upnd, the real chipante pante party. Ba chimbwi no plan…
When will UPND mature??
You storm out of a meeting and start asking questions outside which you needed to ask in the meeting?? Who has bewitched you sure? Even when things have seemingly improved in your favour than they have ever been, you still behave like children entering politics today!! Very disappointing! When you are not sure of the modalities, that is the main reason that should keep you right in the face of the ECZ until your concerns are addressed. Instead of making noise on social media or elsewhere, you have been given a front row seat to engage ECZ and what do you do with it, you storm out to continue ‘crying’ everywhere except were it matters most!
Ba upnd, their favourite political modus operandi is always ‘walking out’. Let it be known that this tack tick does not, and will not, in the main, endear them to the majority voters as a political strategy to win vote-support and popularity, going forward.
Does UPND know what they want. These are the !diots who want to be voted into power.
I want to make it clear to the thieving PF regime that it cannot cow us any longer. We will not accept turning us to second class citizens on our land not even with threats of arrests or assassinations. Not even Lusambo, Tutwa, Kainyokolola etc who have made themselves uncouth attack dogs can scare us. Only beneficiaries of the present skewed and lopsided structure of the country are against the restructuring of Zambia. I would warn that the country cannot continue in the way and manner the affairs of state are being conducted; whereby Bembas and Nyanjas are considered superior to other Zambians. It can’t be that natural resources from the Copperbelt, Southern and Northwestern are used to develop Chipata, Kasama, Chinsali etc while the rest of the country remains poor with zero…
UNPD seem not to have developed the art of debate. One wonders if there are any debates in their party meetings. How will they govern? They engage in a meeting, the next move is to storm out. Who is pulling the strings from behind? ECZ for all its failures has nothing to do with prisoners voting. This is the time to discuss modalities because nothing will change – the prisoners will have to vote. So says the Courts of Law
how come ECZ is not talking about following voters who will be in hospitals and bedriden at the time of voting, is ECZ also going to devise a plan on how they are going to capture the votes of those that won’t manage to walk to polling station due to sickness? why only the concentration on the prisoner’s vote?
If you have never seen a political idyoti then Obvious Summerton Mwaliteta is a perfect living example. If it weren’t for HRH Chieftainess Chiawa who lobbied MCS to have him adopted as candidate for Kafue constituency, he would still have been a minibus driver. Now he has forgotten and doesn’t even mention HRH in his statements. He not the only one that has forgotten his roots, there are many. Everything he has today he owes it to MCS and Mama Chiawa.
@ubututu, my point. What he trying to tell us is that the courts were supposed to consult upnd. It like your child has been accepted at Unza your neighbor becomes angry and he says he was supposed to be consulted before your son is accepted. Forgetting that It was unza that accepted your child.
What do you expect from this ex-band!t! Sue the Concourt kanshi! Dull chaps these UPeNd dunderheads are!
Typical UPND debate phobia! Its so obvious (mwaliteta) that UPND cannot engage in persuasive argument.
Mr Mwaliteta is an Obvious fright and flight UPND negotiator. Cannot be a persuader of minds. Turns tail instead.
who has given prisoners the right to vote, is it PF, ECZ, or the COURT?. If it is the courts, then let Mwaliteta challenge the courts ruling instead of blaming innocent people. Surprising, you walk out of the meeting. Which meeting?
Good one Bravo UPND
Eff off !!!! Who are you to be consulted? When we consult you and ask you to debate bill 10, you shun the debates and walk out, so why would any sane person think of inviting babys like you to serious consultations? First grow up and prove that you are man or woman enough to sit at the table. K0l0k0mbwa
Consult you as if you are ECZs wife. My friend voestek!!!
These guys have over gained opposition leadership that they are now opposing everything. 22 years in opposition ” finshi mwashokwa ni murder mwachaya ”
Experience: 22 years in Opposing
These guys have over gained opposition experience that they are now opposing everything. 22 years in opposition ” finshi mwashokwa ni murder mwachaya ”
Experience: 22 years in Opposing
THE PROBLEM IS HERE IN ZAMBIA CERTAIN MWAKOLES WANT US TO ACCEPT WHAT THEY WANT WHICH SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN THE CASE.TRANSPIRANCY IS IMPORTANT.I KNOW THIS PINK AKALILANTA MWAKOLE KZ WILL WANT TO CONDEMN THE DECISION BY MWALITETA. KZ,I FEEL PITY FOR U.
@Aristotole, that’s typical Under 5 thinking. Think through what you said again.