With new Covid-19 restrictions, adoptions must be on merit!
..Speaking without favour or favour, my 2021 mission is ECL..
CLEARLY, the 2021 election campaigns will not be business as usual. Politics has always been about numbers and pulling crowds during political rallies.
It’s been about moving in large numbers from one place to another. All this will not be the case as the country heads for the August 12 elections.
The advent of Covid-19 has completely altered the style of political campaigns.
There will be no rallies as we know them. There will be no more large gatherings as we know them. Much of the campaigns will tide on radio, TV, online, print media and door to door campaigns and the use of megaphones, etc.Who ever imagined a time when general election campaigns would be held without mass rallies? In the words of Tupac Shakur “That’s just the way it is - things will never be the same!
Covid-19 has not only changed our lifestyles, its equally altered politics and its practice thereof.
To my beloved Patriotic Front, there will be less gatherings or rallies for President Edgar Lungu to launder unsaleable candidates. Our leaders in the party’s central committee must be cognisant of the realities on the ground in each constituency and do what is right - give the people the representatives they want.
By all means, it must avoid imposing candidates like it did in several constituencies in 2016 when we witnessed so many independent candidates who were PF members. We saw big names tumbling in the 2016 election because the central committee did not listen to the ground.
Let me also submit that President Lungu would have beaten HH by a wider margin had we gone with the right candidates in those constituencies.
Let’s face it - playing big names even when they were not on the ground narrowed the gap between our President and the UPND leader.
The selection of unpopular parliamentary candidates in 2016 ate into our Presidential vote - this is my submission and I stand to be corrected.
The habit of imposing candidates on constituencies must remain with 2016. We must ask ourselves the implications of imposing candidates in Mpika Central, Kanchibiya, Nakonde, Mufulira Central, Lundazi Central etc - clearly we do not need to see independent candidates in these constituencies. We all know what is on the ground and let us not bury our heads in the sand.
Starting tomorrow, I will tell you the only three MPs safe in Muchinga Province.
Thereafter I’ll move to Northern Province. I want to help my cousins first before going back kwatu ku mawa!
I sign off!
COMEL ZIMBA.