UPND vice-president Mutale Nalumango says the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) should be ashamed of itself for failing to ensure a fair voter registration process.

Commenting on the recently announced provincial voter registration statistics, Nalumango said the statistics indicated that some provinces were deliberately disadvantaged.

“I said it when they were producing these figures as we went on and the behaviour towards the registration, broken down machines, they left people on the lines. They never gave NRCs as they had been giving NRCs in their perceived strongholds, I am using deliberately the word perceived. If I was [ECZ chairperson Esau] Chulu, if I was [ECZ CEO Patrick] Nshindano or anybody associated with the Electoral Commission of Zambia, I would be embarrassed to even produce those figures, segregated provinces. I would be embarrassed, because how do you justify the fact that the numbers have gone up in certain provinces? When there was an outcry that you are not registering here. We are seeing a wicked regime. Are you saying in Western Province, Southern, North-Western there was war? Because the numbers have gone down, not even static, they have gone down. So, people have died, was there wars in those areas? After dying they never produced anybody in the year period that has been captured? There must be ashamed!” Nalumango said.

She said the UPND would partner with all Zambians to remove the PF government.

“However, these are people who are hell bent on destroying our country, our democracy, our governance, UPND will still go on partnering with Zambians. Partnering with Zambians in Northern, partnering with Zambians in Luapula, partnering with Zambians in Muchinga, partnering with Zambians in Eastern and partnering with Zambins in Central, Lusaka and the Copperbelt. That is my call, let us partner with Zambians and remove these mwankoles, they have no understanding what democracy is all about. They have no understanding of what governance is all about. I always wonder what they planned all the time when they were planning to come into government, was it only about them? Did they sit and say ‘we want to change the life of Zambians’, or all that they said is that ‘we change our own lives’ so that we can move with heaps of money and give the owners, the crumbs that fall from the bread,” Nalumango said.

“If you are not at pains, you are not a Zambian, if you are not at pains with this type of Electoral Commission that has no shame to produce such figures when we cried foul, then I don’t know whether you are a true Zambian. We will partner with Zambians. We will partner with all Zambians to remove these people. Even where they think it is their stronghold, we partner with them. Let us partner and peacefully remove them as they came in let them go. Our partners should know that our colleagues are using our money to bribe them back. What we need is a level playing field. You know where the field is, the field is in our understanding, our minds as Zambians to realise that a K2,000 that they have given you cannot send your children to school today cannot pay for medical bills, even proper medicine, not Honeybee. The national treasury has been depleted through corruption, through pure theft, through mismanagement. It is therefore, your money, get it but remember it will not resolve your problems.”

Nalumango said Zambians should give UPND president Hakainde Hichilema a chance and watch the country transform within the next five years.

“Let us move in to bring in a government of UPND, Hakainde Hichilema. Sign a contract with UPND by voting with us and see in the next five years that there will be change. Otherwise the economy we are mourning about will not change, if we leave it under these people. We have promised to come and change the economy. We know how to stop the corruption. We have good plans to see that agriculture becomes good business. You have a man that is a thinker, that is a businessman, that is an economist, that is a planner, that is loving, to share his vision, but 12 August is a deciding factor, do you want these good things to go to the political grave? Or do you want to see them materialise? Your vote is your weapon,” said Nalumango.