Vice president George Kunda has revealed that government has no immediate intentions of tabling before parliament the issue of second republican president Dr. Fredrick Chiluba’s presidential immunity which was removed in 2002.

Mr. Kunda, who is also Justice Minister, assured the house that the issue of Dr. Chiluba’s immunity will be addressed in the new constitution.

He said that there was a part that will address the issue of the second republican president’s immunity in the new constitution.

And the vice president has questioned why some opposition political parties have u-turned on their support to the second republican president.

Mr. Kunda said that he was surprised that some opposition political parties are now calling on government to recover the alleged stolen money from Dr Chiluba, when in the past they claimed his innocence.

Mr. Kunda has further stated that government has not failed to recover or locate any assets linked to the Dr. Chiluba anywhere in the world.

The vice president has also denied accusations that the MMD government has been shielding Dr. Chiluba.

The vice president was answering a question from Chipili Member of Parliament Davies Mwila.

The Patriotic Front has called for fresh negotiations with the United Party for National Development over the future of the UPND/PF pact.

Sources have revealed to QFM that PF president Michael Sata this week met with UPND president Hakainde Hichilema to see if they can still work together.

Mr. Sata is said to have complained to the UPND president that some people close to him were advising him wrongly on the issue of the PACT.

The PF president is said to have written to the UPND requesting to have a fresh look at the electoral alliance of the two biggest political parties in the country.

Yesterday, senior members of the UPND met to discuss the letter written by the PF.

The UPND meeting which was held at the party’s secretariat and lasted for more than 9 hours resolved to give the PF conditions in order to enter into an alliance again.

The sources explained to QFM that the UPND will keep its doors open as long as the PF accepts the set out conditions.

Among other conditions include the economic agenda of the PACT government and the sharing of the government positions equally.

QFM news has also been told that UPND president Hakainde Hichilema has no problem with being the vice president as long as the most important issues concerning the nation are agreed upon.

Efforts to get a comment for the two camps failed by press time.

QFM

Senior Chief Musele of the Lunda people of Solwezi district in North western Province has said he would not sign the surface rights for the development of the Trident project by First Quantum Minerals if the 750 square kilometres being asked for is not revised.

Senior Chief Musele said he would not go ahead and sign because the land being asked for by the mining company is too much and suggested that they take up only 500 square kilometres.

He expressed fear that if the mine was given that much land his people would have no where to settle and do their farming activities from because the whole
area would be taken up.

The traditional leader was speaking during a meeting organised by the Environmental Council of Zambia at Wanyinwa Basic School in Solwezi on Wednesday.

Senior Chief Musele bemoaned gaps in the way information flowed between the two parties, citing the non availability of the map which clearly stated boundaries and where the mining activity starts and ends.

He added that information on a number of families to be affected by the mining activities through displacement had also not been disclosed.

Meanwhile, the senior chief has appealed to the Environmental Council of Zambia (ECZ) to consider translating the Environmental Impact Assessment draft report for the Trident project into local languages to enable locals have a clear understanding of its contents.

The chief also appealed for more time from ECZ to enable him study the draft report thoroughly.

Speaking at the same meeting, acting Senior Chief Sailung’a of Mwinilunga district observed that development brought about both a negative and positive impact on the people and environment hence the need to work out modalities on how to mitigate the negative impact.

Senior Chief Sailung’a said the coming of the Trident project would tamper with nature as trees and rivers that have been sustaining people’s livelihoods would be disturbed adding that the mine should try to protect these in every way possible.

ZANIS

Former Patriotic Front (PF) spokesperson Given Lubinda says he is delighted that he is not spokesperson of The Party at the time of the PF/UPND pact’s break-up as he would have not stood the tension.

Mr. Lubinda says the news of the pull out of the United Party for National Development (UPND) From the pact would not have been so easy for him to handle as he had worked so hard for the sustainability of the same.

He said it is saddening that the pact has been dissolved at a time when the Zambians invested so much to see it prosper.

Mr. Lubinda appealed to the leaderships of the two parties to put their personal interests and greed aside and instead prioritize the nation’s interests.

He added that the two parties should have resolved their differences amicably instead of swaying away from the basis the pact was founded upon.

Mr. Lubinda has however remained optimistic that the Patriotic Front will win the general election as a single party.

He says the only difference is that it might not be with a large margin compared to the way pact would have won the elections.
[ QFM ]

The Committee of Citizens has said Zambia’s Electoral Act prohibits monitors and observers to declare or disclose results of any election before the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) does so.

Executive director Gregory Chifire said regulation 15 (6) (F) of the Electoral Act was explicit as to why the parallel vote tabulation (PVT) system was illegal.

“We should emphasise that under regulation 15 (6) (F) of the Electoral Act, monitors and observers are prohibited by themselves or through their organisations to declare or disclose the result of any election before the ECZ does so.

“This provision in the Electoral Act is what makes the PVT system illegal,” Mr Chifire said in a statement in Lusaka yesterday.

He said the ECZ was the sole institution mandated by the Constitution in Article 76 and the Laws of Zambia to conduct elections and all its processes.

Mr Chifire said for the purpose of transparency and principles of holding free and fair elections, the ECZ did allow independent observers and monitors to witness the entire electoral process.

“It does not mean that these NGOs (non-governmental organisations) should usurp the constitutional powers of the ECZ by wishing to count, tabulate, collate and announce poll results using the PVT.

“Furthermore, our opposition to the use of the PVT by these NGOs is because they cannot be trusted to use this process responsibly since their partisan and hostile stance against the MMD Government is well-known and documented,” he said.

He also questioned the decision by the Department for International Development (DfiD) of the United Kingdom to engage the National Democratic Institute (NDI) to carry out the PVT system at a cost of 3.8 million Euros during this year’s elections.

Mr Chifire further questioned the decision by NDI to contract the Press Freedom Committee (PFC) of the Post and Caritas Zambia as lead institutions, which have also engaged the Anti-Voter Apathy Project (AVAP) and Southern African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (SACCORD).

He said PFC also intended to contract Transparency International Zambia to form a consortium or block that would carry out the PVT.

Mr Chifire said it was surprising that DfiD and NDI could engage PFC and Caritas Zambia as lead organisations to carry out the PVT system when the two organisations had never been known to be monitoring or observer bodies and had no relevant experience to monitor elections.

“This is the reason which has heightened our suspicions that PVT will be used for the purpose of inciting violence and anarchy,” he said.

Mr Chifire said PVT was at the centre of the post-electoral conflict and anarchy in Zimbabwe, Kenya and recently the Ivory Coast, although the proponents claimed that PVT was used successfully in Ghana and Zambia in 2008.

He said his organisation was aware that a sampling method to ascertain the integrity of election results was secretly used by the Foundation for Democratic Process (FODEP) for a targeted audience like donors.

He said although the 2008 PVT conducted by FODEP demonstrated that election results as announced by the ECZ in Zambia were accurate, that did not stop The Post and its allies such as Citizens Forum from making their usual unfounded claims that the polls were rigged.

Patriotic Front leader Michael Sata maintained in the Post yesterday that despite the warning by President Rupiah Banda that anyone computing and tabulating results of the 2011 elections instead of the constitutionally mandated body, the ECZ, would be committing a criminal offence, he would go ahead and call for the use of the PVT system.

[ Times of Zambia ]

A couple in Luanshya is alleged to be organising marriage between its 22 year old daughter and a 29 year old man whom she doesn’t love.

Pascal Mwape and his wife Mary, are allegedly threatening to chase their daughter out of the house if she refuses to marry the said man identified as Francis of the same township.

The victim, daughter to the couple, Flaviour Mwape, told ZANIS in an interview that her mother verbally threatened to chase her out of the house on Tuesday morning should she refuse to marry the said man.

Ms. Mwape explained that she already had a boyfriend whom she loves and has been dating for over four years now.

She says he is the man she prefers to marry.

Ms. Mwape attributes her parents’ hatred for her lover to tribalism, saying her parents prefer a fellow Bemba to marry her.

But when contacted for a comment, her lover who only identified himself as Michael, based in Lusaka, confirmed that Flavor’s mother threatened him on Monday.

He added that his fiancee’s mother threatened him when she called him on her mobile saying she will not accept his lobola because Flaviour will be married off to her preferred man.

Michael explained that he wants his girlfriend to go to College first before marrying her, adding that he is disappointed with his girlfriend’s parents.

He has since appealed to relevant organisations on human and women’s rights to come on board and help him save her girlfriend from what he dubs ‘Selfish parents’ motives’ to force his girlfriend into marriage against her consent.

[ ZANIS ]

The United Party for National Development (UPND) says it is impossible for its former pact partner the Patriotic Front (PF) to win this year’s tripartite elections.

UPND spokesperson Charles Kakoma said in Lusaka on yesterday that the PF cannot win the poll, given the facts on the ground, which are stacked against the opposition party. He was reacting to PF secretary general Wynter Kabimba who said on March 16 that the PF was looking forward to winning the 2011 elections.

Mr Kakoma described PF’s hopes of having an outright victory in the 2011 elections as ‘delusional’.

“If they think they can win this time around, that is a delusion, dreaming and a serious error of judgement of events on the ground,” he said.

He said an ‘outright victory’ proclaimed by Mr Kabimba is practically impossible.

Mr Kakoma also dispelled Mr Kabimba’s allegations that UPND caused the failure of the pact and said it were people like him (Mr Kabimba) and his president Michael Sata who thought it was not necessary to unite and provide formidable opposition to the MMD.

Earlier, Mr Kabimba said UPND vice-president Richard Kapita said at a press briefing when he officially announced his party’s pullout from the pact that party members started campaigning for their president Hakainde Hichilema last year because they knew that the pact was not going to work.

“So, the reasons they have given about Mr Sata being a dictator are not genuine at all. UPND have been undermining the pact from last year, if not long before 2010, according to their own confession,” he said.

[pullquote]“They also said we in the UPND have no brains. Obviously, this was provocative and they wanted to annoy us. So, it is them who wanted the pact to die. Now that the Zambian people have descended on them, they are defending themselves and accusing us of killing the pact,” he said.[/pullquote]

Mr Kakoma said UPND was a serious and faithful pact partner and that it did all it could to ensure that the pact succeeded but the PF never took it seriously from the very beginning.

Mr Kakoma said last year, the PF wrote to UPND explaining the rules of engagement in the pact but started fielding candidates even where the working group had agreed to be represented by UPND members.

“For example, they followed us in Chilanga, Kafulafuta and others. They also advertised to field their candidates in all the constituencies and wards. This was an indication that they were not serious,” he said.

Mr Kakoma said it was clear that the PF did not have regard for UPND leaders and wondered how and why they could refer to Mr Hichilema as an “under-five” when he is a 48-year-old man with a wife and children.

“They also said we in the UPND have no brains. Obviously, this was provocative and they wanted to annoy us. So, it is them who wanted the pact to die. Now that the Zambian people have descended on them, they are defending themselves and accusing us of killing the pact,” he said.

Last week, the UPND announced it was pulling out of the pact, formed in June 2009, due to ‘irredeemable differences’.

UPND vice-president Richard Kapita said it had become clear that the pact would not work because the PF was disrespectful to the UPND which it regarded as a junior partner.

[Zambia Daily Mail]