By Mwape Mwesa in Solwezi
Six candidates have successfully filed in their nominations for the Solwezi Central Parliamentary seat in the August 12 general elections.
The six filed in their nomination papers at Solwezi Civic Centre before Returning Officer David Saitumbo.
The filing in of nominations was scheduled to officially close at 15:00 hours but were only closed after 17:30 hours.
Mr Saitumbo cited power outage, mulfunctional kit as some of the reasons for the delay in closing the nominations.
Socialist party candidate Handson Salungu was first to file in his papers at about 9:45 hours followed by United Party for National Development’s(UPND) Stafford Mulusa.
Others are Itompi Samina an independent candidate,Layard Kalubankwa from the Party for National Unity and Prosperity and Milner Katolo of the Patriotic Front (PF) while Democratic Party’s Michael Mukunga was the last to file in at about 16:50 hours.
Speaking after filing in the papers, the candidates were confident of scooping the seat with the UPND and PF candidates calling for issue based campaigns.
Socialist party candidate Handson Salungu said the party will scoop the seat come August 12 because of its pro poor policies.
“Socialist party is a party for the poor and because of that we will carry the day,” Mr Salungu said.
Mr Mulusa said there is no need for name calling or mudslinging each other but that each candidate should sale themselves to the electorate.
“There is no need for us to start calling each other names, this campaign should be issue based. Let’s sale ourselves to the electorate without mudslinging each other,”Mr Mulusa said.
Mr Katolo echoed Mr Mulusa’s sentiments and added that there should not be any form of violence but that Solwezi Central should serve as a model to other constituencies in the province.
“We will tell the people what we have done and what we will do for them once we are elected into office on August 12. Ours is to point at what we have done as the PF and not to engage in name calling or violent acts, ” Mr Katolo said.
Mr Samina said he is bringing a different style of leadership to the constituency that will help reduce poverty as well as unemployment levels.
The Democratic Party withdrew its initial candidate and readopted a different one while the New Heritage Party’s candidate did not show up despite having indicated intentions to contest the seat.
The country goes to the general elections on August 12, 2021/ZANIS.
