By JOHN SAKALA
The Rainbow Party on the Copperbelt has advised the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) to sensitize the stakeholders to end speculations.
Copperbelt Rainbow Party Provincial Chairperson Fewdays Nsensema said in as much as online voter registration may be good, it needs sensitisation for it to sit well with all stakeholders so thatnthey can embrace the process.
Mr Nsensema said Rainbow Party had taken into consideration the displeasure by electoral stakeholders over online voter registration
He said the party was concerned with displeasure expressed by some civil society, political parties, some non government organizations and some individuals on the issue of the electoral process in Zambia, especially on the on going online pre voter registration and the issue of the the voter register instead of maintaining the old one.
Mr Nsensema advised the Electoral Commissioner of Zambia not to get tired but to continue on engaging all the stakeholders in the electoral process to avoid speculations.
He said the seemingly inadequate consultation and inadequate communication by ECZ has brought a lot of misunderstanding by stakeholders on the online pre voter registration and the coming up of a new voter register.
“As a party we feel ECZ should continue to engage the stakeholders and explain more on these two important issues to avoid creating unnecessary speculations and attacks on the institutions which is a legal body to administrator elections. As a party we want also to advise ECZ again to increase on the level of sensitization and awareness about the online pre voter registration and explain why people should be encouraged to register online, what has necessitated this initiative and what are the advantages to the nation and to the individual who is a voter because doing so will make everyone to understand and move forward with the process especially that this is a computer mordern day technology era and people should embrace technology because the whole world today wants to use technology and improve on efficiency and Zambia and ECZ should not be an exception.
“But people must be educated and shown how to do it. Similarly as a party we urge ECZ of course which is the only legal body mandated by law to administer and conduct elections in our country to clearly explain to the Zambians why they are proposing to come up with the new voter register instead of maintaining an old one? What challenges do they have with an old register and why the new one? Convincing answers to these questions will put the debate to a close and everyone will move in the same direction with ECZ. We also wish to advise all the stakeholders that is political parties, civil society non governmental organizations to encourage people to cooperate and work with ECZ and explain to the people and encourage them to register as voters as ECZ work on how to enhance communication. It is not always good to speculate about vote riging by ECZ, let’s work together this is our country,” he said.
