Voter registration period not practical
Dear Editor,
CALLS by civil society that ECZ should extend the registration exercise for voters beyond the 30-day period are mere rhetoric.
Unless one is viewing the issue from the UPND point of view, we ought to consider the fact that the elections date is prescribed by the Constitution.
In this regard, ECZ will be required to put all modalities in place and see to it that on the second Thursday of August of 2021, eligible voters cast their votes.
This is not an easy undertaking therefore any rational and patriotic Zambian has no option other than sympathising with the electoral body. Moreover, in this electoral calendar, ECZ has a lot of work to do which also include regularising and modernisation of the operations of the organisation.
The political players should also be reminded that voter registration is not the only activity that is necessary. It will also be required to conduct a number of pre-election activities.
We also wish to remind the critics of ECZ on the duration of the registration that it is an independent institution. We will not allow the electoral body to be intimidated by greedy politicians who have an insatiable appetite for political office.
They want to be unilaterally controlling the electoral process by remote. There is need for the opposition and their surrogate to appreciate the fact that the electoral process is an all-inclusive one and it should not be the matter of life and death for everything to go their way.
We wish to restate our previous pronouncements on the negative impact caused by the coronavirus of 2019. Its net effect on the modus operandi of ECZ meant it lost four months from its calendar. This means that if ECZ was to compensate for the lost time, elections can only be conducted at least in December, 2021 which under the Constitutional provisions is not justified.
We have already reminded the legislators from the opposition that they have the liberty to move a motion which will extend the life of Parliament if a longer duration for undertaking the voter registration exercise was to be allowed.
We therefore wish to commend the ECZ on its firm decision to conduct election registration without 30 days even in the light of cyber bullying.
MARVIN CHANDA MBERI, Youth Rights Activist, Petauke..