UPND mobilisation and strategy chairperson Sylvia Masebo has called on party members to fearlessly embark on a party mobilisation exercise because it is everyone’s responsibility to grow the numbers.

And newly appointed UPND chairperson for elections Garry Nkombo says the opposition party will move a motion to remove Electoral Commission of Zambia chairperson justice Esau Chulu because he played too many games with people’s votes in 2016.

Addressing UPND members in Chilanga, Wednesday, Masebo encouraged them to take the role of mobilising their party.

“Mobilisation must start with your own family members charity begins at home, and then your neighbours and then you start moving around. So everybody is in the mobilization department, then members of the party like our senior citizens that support us members of the party, you too are part of mobilization and I am aware that some of you that are just members and not in structures are better mobilizers. Now since we are all supposed to be part of the mobilisation, I want to inform you that there are various tools that we can use to mobilize our party and one of those is media, media is a tool for mobilization because when I speak and I speak sense for example if I say once UPND is elected into government we will provide free education which is one of our policies, so when that message is taken and is given to the public those that want us to run a government of free education will be very happy and they will support us,” said Masebo.

“The president [Hakainde Hichilema] has said his government will not be a wasteful government, [for example] you see a president traveling with a huge entourage having a good time at the expense of development in the country, or these stories that you hear of corruption morning, noon and night. And we hear it from the people that are from PF itself because they know what they are talking about, and some of these corrupt acts we are able to see like the 42 fire tenders and so on. We have heard of these people wasting national resources in terms of land, wild life and many more, we know all that through the press. So the media is a very important tool for mobilization. Also take note of social media, the internet, it has become a good tool of party mobilization.”

And Nkombo warned Chulu against playing games with people’s votes in 2021.

“Being the new chairperson for election allow me to send word to Mr Chulu, the chairman of the commission. Mr Chulu we will not tolerate your shenanigans of 2016. We will not tolerate your announcing results that are nonexistence in Lundazi. Mr Chulu you have been caught by the tail. Mr Chulu we are going to catch you this time. We know everything what went on in that coalition centre. We know how you Mr Chulu agreed for us to make sure that there shall be no election results announced until all the Gen 12 forms are availed, and I want to disclose this now to the nation through Chilanga that it was an agreed position, that there will be no election results announced for Lusaka, it was an agreed position and Emily Sikazwe, who is the commissioner, together with myself, we are assigned to make sure that the Gen 12 forms are brought before any announcement is made. And because of this fallen hero this fallen dictator across here in Zimbabwe, Mugabe who was waiting here in this country to see that Edgar Lungu was pronounced president, the army took over, the police took over, they came and did exactly the opposite of what we had agreed,” said Nkombo.

“So my message to you Mr Chulu is that going forward, you will not be allowed to play such games. And pray for yourself that come the next elections, you will be sitting in that office because we are moving a motion to remove you Mr Chulu. If we do not reform the ECZ, we would like to insist because the money is there, the cooperating partners have provided the money to reform ECZ. We will not allow in the amendments of the act to allow the executive and the President to continue being the ones identifying the commissioners of ECZ, we will allow a situation where all the political players, the stake holders are going to forward names to the ECZ for representation so that there can be a balanced cooperation for that body. We will ensure to mobilize our party countrywide to make sure that this party that Zambians are yearning for to get into government takes its right place in this society. We know very well and it’s not a secret that every corner of this country, every citizen of this country is yearning for good leadership, unfortunately good leadership can only be gotten through the electoral process.”

Nkombo said the PF was taking advantage of the fact that the PF was at its weakest.