UPPZ president Charles Chanda has charged that the newly-formed opposition alliance is going nowhere, warning that if one party falls, then all will fall together.

And Chanda claims that there is a hidden printing press in the country which government is using to print ballot papers for ‘ghost voters’.

Speaking when he featured on Chat Back programme on Radio Christian Voice, Thursday, Chanda also argued that political parties that do not participate in local government or parliamentary elections should forget about forming government.

“If you narrow down all the opposition, and you say: ‘you are going to have one presidential candidate,’ and of course, everybody knows who is going to be…if you did that, you don’t need a prophet, you don’t even need a witch doctor to tell you who is going to be the presidential candidate. Even if you are physically not able to see, you can know that in this alliance, this is the one to be the president, but that’s not the issue,” Chanda said.

“The issue here is, when we do that, we are shooting ourselves in the foot because suppose you now have all the opposition to become one, is that not the same spirit of one-party rule? That’s the rule. You need to allow people with their various views because that’s how we can be able to form a better society. So, if out of 10 there is one party, which God wants to remove, it means that all the 10 of you will fall, and you will never rise again! I want to avoid that. All I am saying is that, after the first round [of election], let us gather together and then see who we can work with. I am not a prophet of doom, but you will remember that I was saying this thing you are calling alliance is going nowhere!”

He then alleged that there was a printing press kept at a secret location used to print ballot papers for ghost voters.

“I want to also say that in this country, are you aware that we have a machine that prints ballot papers and it’s not at ECZ? Is ECZ aware that there is a machine in this country that prints ballot papers? The question comes in [to say] who is using that machine? And I even know where the machine is. You can come and pick me [and] I will take you where the machine is. So, I am saying here that there are things that are wrong and we need to correct them,” Chanda charged.

“You can’t be denying other political parties permits to campaign and then [at the same time] you claim to be free and fair. So, the language you have been hearing from ECZ saying the elections were free and fair, that is an ‘auto-pilot’ kind of recorded systems at ECZ. They just press it [at] every election, but we need a change!”

He challenged political parties in a habit of only waiting for general elections to start participating now.

“And I want to challenge these other political parties [that] I might be, maybe the third youngest political party in this country, [but] some political parties are not participating in elections. You need to start participating; don’t wait for the general elections and you expect a miracle, it doesn’t work like that! Don’t expect to become (Republican) President when you can’t even attempt to have a parliamentary seat and you want to become president, in which country are you going to become president? Not in Zambia! You need to get involved so that you can be exposed, and then, once you are exposed to some of these methods, you now want to fight it,” he said.

He further encouraged politicians to avoid practising politics of insults.

“People have been so silent, the politicians we have in this country are so timid, all they know are insults, [but] it’s not the insults we need. Let’s gather facts and use those facts to correct this country. Insults cannot make you a president no matter how perfect you are in insults. We need to change our way of doing politics, we need to offer checks and balances. Where things are wrong, and you have evidence, bring out that evidence,” Chanda stressed.