FORMER Lusaka Archbishop Telesphore Mpundu has advised those aggrieved by the election results to follow the right channel of petitioning the results.

In an interview, Sunday, Archbishop Mpundu said it was unfortunate that the PF cried foul over the election results when they tried everything possible to prevent the opposition from campaigning.

“Power is easy to give up, you remember what the late president Fredrick Chiluba once said, ‘I never thought power was so sweet’. And then there was a person who came in and was given the name humble President. What he is trying to do is just delaying and it is unconstitutional. I don’t think the reigning President has the power to stop the Electoral Commission of Zambia from announcing the results,” he said.

“What we know even as laypeople is that the one who is aggrieved applies to the courts after the announcement of results has been done. Trying to distort the will of the people should be taken as a crime. They were trying everything to prevent the opposition from doing what they needed to do such as campaigning and now they are crying foul. They did the campaigning and yet they failed. This is unacceptable, it is unacceptable. Let people just follow the right channels. If they are aggrieved, let them apply and better on when results have been declared and all that is required, then they can go to court if they wish.”

Archbishop Mpundu advised the PF to accept defeat.

“There are people who are there and they have said the ECZ is doing a professional job and those from outside have said that. So someone comes from outside because they are aggrieved or they think there is something fishy going on, saying the commission is not doing a good job when in fact ECZ is under the republic of Zambia. Meaning it is the government people doing that. So it is ridiculous that they are baling themselves,” said Archbishop Mpundu.

“At one time they even told the commission to put aside the continuous regulation of voters that waited for 12 years and it was scrapped just like that. They are dictating and now they are saying the commission is working under the influence of what, what force apart from the government of the day. These are just excuses and if they have lost, let them lose wisely and horribly, they will be remembered in future during other opportunities.”