WHY ARE YOU SILENT
…ECZ, Registrar must show credibility of parties they invited – Silumbe
By Mast Reporter
THE Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) must be enjoying the confusion it is creating in the opposition by creating a perception that there is no credible party to take over from the United Party for National Development (UPND) in August, Leadership Movement (LM) president Dr Richard Silumbe has said.
And Dr Silumbe has challenged the Registrar of Societies to make available a list of political parties that have submitted their returns.
In an interview with The Mast, Dr Silumbe wondered why the ECZ and the Registrar of Societies had kept quiet on the type of political party leadership invited to the stakeholders’ meeting in Lusaka on April 17.
“We have noted with great concern the perception political cadres, especially those from this failed government want to create about the opposition in Zambia. In fact, it should not be us political parties to explain ourselves. It should be the compromised ECZ and Registrar of Societies’ duty to inform us where those people came from and their standing at both ECZ and the Registrar of Societies,” he said.
Dr Silumbe said the silence was not only shocking but exposed ECZ and Registrar of Societies on their scheme to kill the opposition in Zambia.
“Most of those so-called political party presidents have never been seen in an election, while some were last heard in the last general election, I mean as not participants but endorsers. The best the ECZ and RS should have done was to update the nation on the legal standing of those parties rather than making it look as if Zambia has no leaders to take over from the UPND,” he said.
Dr Silumbe said the problem the country was facing at the moment was a result of the political inclination of institutions of governance toward those in power.
“ECZ must tell the nation what it wanted to achieve in that meeting. Why should it invite political parties that only exist on paper? This has exposed ECZ and its plan to kill democracy,” he said.
Dr Silumbe said many political party leaders with a sound mind attended the meeting, wondering why the focus of UPND allied media was on those with questionable character.
“You see, in politics, this government wants to bury multi-party politics in Zambia. This regime is full of cowards and the perception it has created, sadly, with the help of institutions of governance such as ECZ and the Registrar of Societies, shocks many. One wonders why they haven’t shown what I said? Why haven’t they shown what Makebi Zulu said? Why not show what Dr Fred M’membe said, why not [Harry] Kalaba or Saboi [Imboela]? Why flood the nation with propaganda full of nonsense?” he said.
Dr Silumbe said Zambians were above a sick narrative created by those who didn’t care about the future of the nation but about staying in power at any cost.
And Dr Silumbe has challenged the Registrar of Societies to make available the names of political parties that have made returns as of April 17.
“You cannot allow such a move. You carefully select functional and organised systems and bunch them together with organisations which even the Registrar of Societies has nothing to do with because they don’t exist,” he said.
Dr Silumbe said the silence by the two institutions of governance on the status quo of opposition political parties and their standing at law was concerning.
He urged Zambians to be worried about the narrative the UPND and its allies were creating about opposition politics in the nation.
“It should be a duty of every Zambian who cares about the future to ask why parading people who add no value to the governance of the country as leaders? Zambians must demand the list of political parties so that they can compare with what they were subjected to and to what exists at the Registrar of Societies. Let RS show the returns of all those political parties that attended that meeting. For us, we are not part of the clowns paraded in that meeting in the form of opposition,” Dr Silumbe said.
Last week the UPND media machinery flooded the social and mainstream media space with images of leaders of little known political parties misbehaving during the stakeholders meeting called to discuss the recently announced new constituencies.
Many observers believe the so called ‘clowns’ were allegedly hired by the UPND and deliberately invited by ECZ for the sole purpose of portraying the opposition as mediocre and unfit to challenge President Hakainde Hichilema in the August presidential election.
