Withholding NRCs illegal-UPND leader
By a Correspondent
A UNITED Party for National Development (UPND) official says it illegal to withhold someone’s National Registration Card (NRC) or academic certificates as a means of enforcing loyalty ahead of the general elections.
Innocent Matyola said in his write-up that no law in Zambia permitted political organisations to confiscate or retain NRCs and professional qualifications.
“Good morning, my fellow UPND leaders and ordinary members. As you very well know, I believe in democracy and democratic practices as benchmarks of freedoms and liberties of citizens.,” he said.
Matyola said democracy provided space for the competition of ideas and ideologies between individuals as well as between political parties that seek the support of citizens to form government.
Matyola said people were free to join any political party of their choice before general elections, warning that any attempt to withhold their certificates and NRCs was illegal and undemocratic.
“In this country, people are free to join any club of their choice, including political parties of their choice at the 11th hour before the general elections if they so wish given their strength if the parties they belong to choose not to adopt them,” he said.
Matyola said Zambians must reject any attempt aimed at taking the country back to a one-party state.
“We have many of these examples, including the Southern province, the traditional stronghold of the UPND itself.
In this modern democratic dispensation, all the attempts that are aimed at taking us back to a one-party participatory system or forcing people to support certain individuals and practices that do not serve this country’s long-term objectives must be consciously and decisively condemned and opposed by every well-meaning Zambian,” he said.
Matyola said it was sad that the ruling UPND was grabbing NRCs and certificates from aspiring candidates with the aim of blocking them if they were left out of the adoptions.
“It has come to our attention that all our aspiring candidates countrywide who wish to stand on the UPND ticket in this year’s general elections were asked to tender in their original NRCs and original professional qualifications at our party Secretariat or the UPND offices in the provinces and constituencies where they are on the basis of proof checking the validity of their documents,” he said.
Matyola said what the UPND was doing was unprecedented in the country’s history.
“There has been no department of government, quasi government institution that ever asked any citizen to tender these sensitive original documents in their job hunts, let alone certified copies through legal provisional agents such as law firms as well as certified Commissioners of oath,” he said.
Matyola said even in the political arena, this was happening for the first time under the UPND, warning that the project was unconstitutional.
“In the political arena, the practices have been the same where no candidates were ever asked to take sensitive documents such as these to their party secretariats that not only have legal constitutional clearance but also do not even have strong rooms to secure these documents,” he said.
Matyola questioned why the UPND had used an illegal system to perpetuate an illegality.
“The question is who has given this undemocratic, archaic, destructive, and ill-conceived advice to the leadership of our democratic party, the UPND? Which legal framework have we, the UPND used to admit people’s sensitive documents, a practice that was never done by all the parties that ran governments before us?
To make bad matters worse, information in the grapevine is that everyone who has applied and left their documents at our offices will only get them after the adoption processes in all political parties are over,” he said.
Matyola said the move was unacceptable and should be stopped forthwith.
“Why is this so? What manner of fear is this? This is not only unacceptable but an embarrassment to all us who identify ourselves with the UPND. If the PF government had sunk this low prior to the 2021 general elections, was our party the UPND going to form government especially given that a good number of the serving ministers were adopted on the UPND ticket upon being left by the PF and other political parties?” he said.
Matyola advised the UPND leadership to reflect on the undemocratic process it had undertaken, as it was destructive.
“We know for a fact that a good number of the serving MPs and Ministers stand no chance to win this year’s general elections and this undertaking of holding their opponents and new aspirants to ransom so that they will not only be left from being adopted but will have no chance to democratically decide to either stand as independents or to stand on any other party in this year’s elections because they will not be given their sensitive documents until all the other parties will have finished their adoption process,” he said.
