People’s Alliance for Change (PAC) president Andyford Banda says the party hopes to pull a surprise by winning this week’s parliamentary by-elections, especially in Roan.

And Banda hopes that people will turn up in numbers to vote in the April 11 by-elections in Roan and Bahati constituencies.

In an interview with News Diggers!, Banda said the campaigns were going well for the party in both constituencies.

He added that PAC would surprise citizens when it wins the by-elections, especially in Roan Constituency, because its candidate was doing very well.

“The campaigns are going well, we don’t want to blow out our own trumpet. I know other people (parties) are busy going live on Facebook and what not [but as for us], we are busy campaigning and we will surprise people especially in Roan. Our candidate is doing well in Roan, also in Bahati as well. One thing is that people have lost hope in the PF and they want something different. So we just have to meet them at their level of expectation. So once we meet them at their level of expectation, I think we should be able to pull a surprise one of these days. And we hope that one of these days will be next (this) week,” he said.

Banda added that PAC was confident that it would perform very well in the by-elections so long as voters turn up in numbers.

“We are very confident that we will perform very well as long as we protect our vote. Also, we are banking on the voter turnout. If we can at least reach 40 to 60 per cent, I think we should be able to win the elections. One of the things that has been affecting us is the low voter turnout. In some elections where we have performed well, if people could have stood up, we could have actually won some of these elections. The reason why people don’t stand [to go and vote] is because they don’t have a lot hope. So we are hoping that people can stand up, once people stand up, we should be able to win, especially in Roan,” Banda said.

Meanwhile, Banda said PAC would emphasise on its campaign message, charging that the resources that PF was dishing out during campaigns were little and wouldn’t take the voters anywhere.

He appealed to the voters to vote for his party.

“We have to stick with a message because these resources that the PF are dishing out, they are just for a period. They are not giving them the kind of money that would help them in any way. They are giving them ama K50, K100, so we have to keep pressing on the message because where is the K50 or K100 going to take them? So we want to appeal to the people of Zambia to vote for PAC because PAC is clearly the only alternative at the moment. We are the ones with the manifesto,” said Banda.

“In your editorial (Friday), you actually indicated that the campaigns have got no scopodonono, but as for PAC, we are giving a message to the people, that’s the difference we have with the rest of these guys.”