By Sean Tembo

1. As Patriots for Economic Progress (PeP) we wish to put it on record that we have always appreciated and supported the work being done by the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) in its preparations for this year’s general elections. However, we are now disappointed with the procedures that the Commission has put in place for submission of presidential candidate supporters who are required to physically present themselves at a provincial ECZ office.

2. As Patriots for Economic Progress, we believe that the reason that has been advanced by ECZ that they need these supporters to physically travel to an ECZ office so that they can obtain biometric parameters from them to confirm that they are genuine voters, does not hold water because ECZ already collected biometric features from all voters during the voter registration process and there is no reason for duplicating this exercises all over again.

3. As Patriots for Economic Progress, our proposal is that ECZ should allow presidential candidates to submit a list of the 100 supporters from each province using an ECZ approved template which would capture all essential details such as full names, physical address, NRC and Voters Cards numbers, signatures, telephone numbers etcetera. ECZ would then easily confirm whether the supporters on the list are genuine registered voters by cross-referencing to their database of registered voters.

4. As Patriots for Economic Progress, our view is that the requirement for presidential candidate supporters to each physically travel to an ECZ office in each province is problematic in several ways. Firstly, transporting 100 people in each province will require the hiring of at least two big buses, which amounts to 20 buses across the country. The cost of hiring a single big bus per day is not less than K10,000, which totals K200,000 for the entire 10 provinces. These 1,000 supporters will also need to be provided with food and other refreshments while they are waiting to be served at the provincial ECZ office, and if we peg the cost per person at K150, this totals K150,000. If we add other incidentals, the total cost easily reaches K500,000. Although this amount might appear small for larger parties such as PF and UPND, it is a huge unnecessary cost for us. We could use this money for other mobilization activities.

5. Secondly, the ECZ requirement to physically transport 1,000 presidential candidate supporters to various provincial ECZ offices across the country presents a significant health risk to our members in this COVID-19 era as it exposes our people to infection and possible death. The Commission is supposed to be promoting methods of doing things which do not abrogate but comply with COVID-19 guidelines. We cannot have a situation whereby one arm of the Government is busy fighting COVID-19 while another arm of the same Government is busy promoting the spread of COVID-19.

6. Thirdly, given the fact that our supporters will be required to be at a specific provincial ECZ office on a specific date and at a specific time, it presents a huge security risk as they can easily be waylaid by our political opponents and prevented from reaching the ECZ office so that our presidential nomination fails.

7. All the above problems can be avoided if the Electoral Commission of Zambia removes this artificial impediment which has the overall effect of undermining the participation of smaller political parties in this year’s general elections. As Patriots for Economic Progress, we have since written to the Commission requesting that they should allow presidential candidates to submit lists of their supporters per province instead of demanding that such supporters physically present themselves at a provincial ECZ office. We are confident that the Commission will favorably consider our request.

By Pilato

Zambia’s Ambassador to Ethiopia and the African Union, Mr Emmanuel Mwamba, has asked the Inspector General of Police, Mr Kakoma Kanganja, to arrest political analyst and commentator Dr Sishuwa Sishuwa for SEDITION after Dr Sishuwa sued him in the Lusaka High Court for defamation.

Sedition is a serious offence that refers to the act of inciting revolt or violence against the government with the goal of overthrowing it. Those arrested on a charge of sedition cannot be granted bail and the punishment is a seven-year prison sentence.

I thought I should provide a chronology of events to help anyone interested understand how we have got here.

19 March 2021

News Diggers newspaper published an article written by Dr Sishuwa Sishuwa titled ‘This is why Zambia may burn after the August election’. In it, Dr Sishuwa discusses the erosion of democracy and lack of freedoms in Zambia ahead of the elections, and the poverty. He also warned that “If Zambia descends into large-scale political unrest after the 12 August general elections, there are three major factors that would have driven the country to that outcome. These include the public’s increasing lack of trust in (and outright contempt for) formal institutions — such as the judiciary, the Electoral Commission of Zambia and the police — as arbiters of the contest between those who wield state power and those seeking to acquire it.

“A second factor is that this is a high-stakes election, featuring two ruthless groups of political elites. One wants to perpetuate its stay in power to continue accumulating resources and to escape possible prosecution and imprisonment; the other seeks to win power to prevent a crushing end to its members’ political careers. Leaders and supporters of both groups see the August election as a matter of life and death and are likely to rebel violently against an outcome that does not favour them — particularly if the electoral process lacks credibility.

“What has emboldened these two factors is the third: the incriminating silence of international, mainly Western, institutions and actors who once spoke out against human rights violations and murderous attacks on democracy, thus exercising some kind of leverage on the actions of the political elites in power. “

Dr Sishuwa went on to mention 15 factors that have left Zambia on the edge such as mass poverty, violent party cadres, mass unemployment and inequalities, a politicised police service, and the fact that the government has ‘stockpiled weapons to kill potential protesters in the event of a flawed election outcome’. He then provided possible solutions for averting the situation. Below is the link to the article.

https://diggers.news/guest-diggers/2021/03/19/this-is-why-zambia-may-burn-after-the-august-election/

20 March 2021

Lusaka Times published on their website the same article written by Dr Sishuwa. Read the article on the link below.

This is why Zambia may burn after the August election

22 March 2021

News Diggers newspaper published a response from Mr John Nyawali, a concerned parent, former spokesperson of the Drug Enforcement Commission and currently a public sector employee working in the office of the Vice President of Zambia. In it, My Nyawali disagreed with Dr Sishuwa’s views and stated that the state of democracy in Zambia was not as portrayed in the article. Mr Nyawali accused Dr Sishuwa of fanning the flames of violence and said Dr Sishuwa’s warning about potential unrest shall not come to pass because Zambians are peaceful people and institutions of democracy are working just fine. Although the article was published in the print edition of the newspaper on 22 March 2021, it was only uploaded online on 26 March 2021. Below is the link to the online version.

https://diggers.news/guest-diggers/2021/03/26/prediction-of-political-turmoil-a-response-to-dr-sishuwa/

On the same day, two other newspapers, The Mast in Zambia and The Mail & Guardian in South Africa, published Dr Sishuwa’s article. Here are the links:

This is why Zambia may burn after the August election

Zambia may burn after the August elections. Here’s how to prevent this

29 March 2021.

Mr Emmanuel Mwamba, Zambia’s Ambassador to Ethiopia and the African Union, responded specifically to the Mail & Guardian version of Dr Sishuwa’s article. In an article published on his Facebook page, Lusaka Times, Smart Eagles and other online media outlets, Mr Mwamba stated in his response that Dr Sishuwa was attempting to scandalise Zambia, harm its reputation and impose a false alarming international narrative. Mr Mwamba then alleged that Dr Sishuwa’s article published in the Mail & Guardian was a paid for propaganda piece and he could even guess who had paid for it. Below is the link to Mr Mwamba’s article.

Sishuwa is Wrong, Zambia Will Remain Peaceful and Prosperous Beyond August 2021

1 April 2021

The Mast newspaper published extracts from a letter that Dr Sishuwa had written to Mr Mwamba on 29 March 2021. In the story, Dr Sishuwa stated that neither he nor the Mail & Guardian newspaper received any payment from anyone for publishing the article. He then requested Mr Mwamba to either retract within 48 hours what he termed as the Ambassador’s ‘defamatory and false’ claims and apologise, or face legal action. Read further on the link below:

Retract your lies or else, Sishuwa warns Ambassador Mwamba

6 April 2021

Lusaka Times published Dr Sishuwa’s response to Mr Nyawali. After thanking Mr Nyawali for responding, Dr Sishuwa rejected the accusation that he was advocating violence. Dr Sishuwa said in the article: “I wrote to alert Zambians to the possible consequences of the trajectory the country has embarked upon, to help identify the drivers of that possible danger ahead, and to suggest some effective solutions. In other words, I am not the message. I am the messenger. I am a carrier of the knowledge of the possible consequences of a flawed election. I am not the cause of the current movement towards civil unrest in Zambia, post the 12 August election. I hate violence, which is why I am, in fact, alerting the nation to the point that any country that follows the trajectory Zambia has embarked upon may end up in grief, great grief, if nothing is done to arrest the key drivers of potential post-election violence, as elaborated in my article…

“I am merely illustrating how our behaviour is leading us to that outcome. Alerting the country to this progression does not amount, even in the remotest sense, to fanning the flames. To the contrary, I am doing everything possible to prevent us from arriving at a situation where unrest becomes inevitable. Please stop shooting the messenger, deal with the message.” The full response is on the link below.

Don’t shoot the messenger, deal with the message. A response to John Nyawali

21 and 22 April 2021

Several newspapers including the Zambia Daily Mail, News Diggers and Daily Nation published stories stating that Dr Sishuwa has sued Mr Mwamba in the Lusaka High Court for defamation. See the link below.

https://diggers.news/courts/2021/04/21/sishuwa-sues-emmanuel-mwamba-for-defamation/

26 April 2021

Mr Mwamba circulated on his Facebook page a letter dated 26 April 2021 that he wrote to the Inspector General of Zambia Police in which he asked Mr Kakoma Kanganja to arrest Dr Sishuwa for sedition over the Mail & Guardian article. The same letter was published on Mwebantu, Lusaka Times, Zambian Observer, Zambian Watchdog and several other online outlets. Below are the links.

AMB. MWAMBA REPORTS SISHUWA SISHUWA TO POLICE FOR SEDITION

So, there you have it, Ladies and Gentlemen. That is how we have got here.

Source: Pilato’s Facebook page https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=313892700086558&id=10004397491656