The Electoral Commission of Zambia has failed to release the 2016 poll results for every polling station because something went wrong in the manner the elections were handled, says Rainbow Party president Wynter Kabimba.

And Kabimba has condemned the hiking of legal fees by the Law Association of Zambia saying it should avoid being an elitist organisation.

Meanwhile, Kabimba says people should not be asking him where Dr Fred M’membe is because he last spoke to him in August 2016.

Speaking when he featured on Millennium Radio this morning, Kabimba said those complaining about the outcome of the election should not be victimized.

“There are people that are aggrieved about the electoral process, I personally don’t think that the electoral process was 100 per cent perfect because there is no such electoral process anyway. But just the fact that up to today we as Rainbow Party have been asking the Electoral Commission of Zambia to give us the results of the 2016 election polling station by station and they have failed to do so, means that there could be something wrong about that election,” Kabimba said.

“So the others that are complaining that they are aggrieved, you cannot start calling them names to say ‘you are bitter, you are just power hungry’ no! They are citizens of this country and they have the right to get the right answers including the Rainbow Party. We are still demanding that ECZ gives us the 2016 election results polling station by polling station because that is what they exist for.”

And Kabimba has condemned members of the Law Association of Zambia who are hiking legal fees.

“I stand for the principle that is one of the ideals of the Rainbow Party, that the poor must have a fundamental right to access justice, that the marketeer, the taxi driver, the illiterate person who cannot read and write and the poor people of this country generally can access justice and legal fees must not be an obstacle to justice. So my view is that I do not agree that LAZ must turn itself into an elitist orgnisation which is seeking to separate the people; that’s not the LAZ I want to belong to. I want to belong to the Law Association of Zambia that has at heart for the problems of the poor. That is the LAZ that I want to belong to. So I disagree even if my brain and my time where worth K6000 an hour, if the poor person can’t access that, then I am useless as a professional in a third world country,” Kabimba said.

Kabimba also said allowing LAZ to disintegrate would be killing the legal profession.

“Secondly, do I subscribe to a proliferation of many associations? No! I don’t, because it will make enforcement of discipline amongst lawyers very difficult. What is going to happen is that if I have squandered a client’s money and I belong to a certain association and my practicing certificate is withdrawn, then I can go to a different association and negotiate my membership there, pay fees and get another practicing certificate, you see? They are simply killing the profession,” Kabimba said.

“You are killing the integrity of this profession so I don’t know what those colleagues of mine that have gone to the courts to go and say this is a human right and we have the right to belong to another association. I will wait to see how the court is going to determine that matter but I can tell you myself for a fact without prejudicing on that matter that it is going to polarize the profession and we are going to have a lot of quark lawyers walking the streets.”

And Kabimba said he was not the right person to ask about Dr M’membe’s whereabouts.

“Firstly, I don’t live with Fred. Fred is an adult and I am also an adult. He has got his family and I have my own family. He lives on Nangwenya Road and I live on Independence Avenue, okay? Secondly, I have not seen or spoken to Fred since August 2016. So I am not the right person to answer that question. Fred is an adult, he has the right of free movement to go outside the country and come back into the country as and when he deems fit. So those that are circulating information that I am the one who knows where he is or that I am his next of kin are wrong and I wish I were, I wish I were Fred’s next of Kin but unfortunately I am not. So I don’t know where the man is,” said Kabimba.