Registration chaos part of rigging – Mundubile
By Mast Reporter
THE chaos that has characterised the ongoing voter registration is deliberate as part of the preparations by the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) to rig the outcome of next year’s general elections, Brian Mundubile has alleged.
Brian Mundubile, who is Mporokoso member of Parliament and an opposition Patriotic Front (PF) presidential aspirant, said the lack of publicity, unprepared staff, unreliable kits and inactive registration centres were all deliberate.
He also condemned the absence of clear deployment plans.
“Voter registration is under way. It is way too important to be approached with the indifference that we have witnessed so far, with insufficient publicity and advertising. We believe mishandling and mismanagement of the registration process is a precursor to rigging, and we shall not allow ECZ to create an enabling environment for electoral malpractice,” Mundubile told journalists in Lusaka Thursday.
The mass voter registration exercise opened on Monday, October 13 and ends on November 11.
But Mundubile said he was “deeply disappointed” with the clear lack of preparedness on the first day, with most centres not having materials and staff.
He noted that the staff had clearly not been briefed about the exercise, and the centres had no signage and no registration kits.
“Reports coming from various constituencies and districts are that the staff from ECZ arrived and the exercise commenced without the deployment plan having been released. We saw that a day after, or so, we saw on social media people providing some deployment plans for certain areas. That is really a flaw in that process,” Mundubile said.
He said in cases where the centres had registration kits, the reports coming from various constituencies were that most of the registration kits were non-functional, or were simply malfunctioning.
“We have also learned, with disappointment, that these registration kits were actually sent out without having been tested here in Lusaka before being distributed. We are aware, and have been part of this electoral management process, as members of Parliament, and indeed members of political parties, we know that many a time this equipment arrived in the country in good time, and various tests were done or conducted to ensure that the equipment was functional before being deployed,” Mundubile said.
“So we want to call upon the ECZ to think through these challenges that have surfaced very early, and begin to look at extending this particular registration period.”
Mundubile was also alarmed by the civil registration for national registration cards (NRCs) was not ongoing.
“So, this has caused further challenges in most of these areas, because people expect that the two processes could run side by side, where people who had no opportunity to register for NRCs, or who indeed only qualified now, could quickly register, do their civil registration by way of NRC and proceed to register as voters,” he said.
Mundubile said felt that the voter registration exercise should be extended to December 31 from the November 11 deadline that was earlier pronounced.
