The Church mother bodies should not claim that they are non-partisan because as long as they vote, they support a particular political party, says PF deputy campaign manager in the just-ended Chilubi parliamentary by-election Mwimba Malama.

And Malama, who is also Mfuwe PF member of parliament, has charged that complaints of PF cadres blocking some voters from accessing a polling station in Chilubi are lies.

Recently, Christian Churches Monitoring Group (CCMG) chairperson Fr Cleophas Lungu stated that its observers noted that PF cadres in Chilubi had blocked some voters from accessing polling stations and demanded to know who they were going to vote for.

“CCMG monitors reported a concerning incident at Muchinshi Primary School in Mpanshya Ward where party cadres briefly blocked access to the polling station and intimidated voters by asking who they were voting for, and later clashed with supporters from an opposing party. CCMG notes that the ECZ reported the incident to the police and the police responded rapidly and dispersed the cadres. CCMG also received a report of political party cadres providing cash handouts to voters at Kapampa Primary School in Kachindi Ward. CCMG notes that this is in violation of the Electoral Code of Conduct (Section 15, Sub-section H), which expressly prohibits the offer of inducements to vote,” stated Fr Lungu, who also noted that ECZ had failed to provide a level playing field.

But reacting to the CCMG report, which is a consortium of the three Church mother bodies, Malama dismissed the observations as lies, adding that no one should claim to be non-partisan for as long as they voted.

“That’s actually a cry of a loser! There is just too much ignorance going on. This is like where you go to a marketeer and start interviewing him/her in English, that’s bullshit! And there is no one who can claim to say, ‘I am non-partisan.’ It’s a lie! No one can actually cheat me to say, ‘I am non-partisan.’ If someone is non-partisan, they should not be voting. As long as you go to vote, that party, which you go to vote for, is the party you support and if something bad happens to that party, you will sympathize with that party. So, the issue of saying, ‘I am non-partisan’ is fake! Be real in life,” Malama said.

Malama, who is also Second Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly, said it was not possible to block 16,000 voters

“That’s a lie! And this time around, people know the rules. Whether you are rich, you can’t buy 16,000 voters! You can’t block people to go and vote to the tune of 16,000 against 4,000. Who can block people? The problem is people think that those people living in the village don’t know anything. This country has become so small because of the kind of gadgets we are using and the technology. For me, I was not informed by anyone that (such an incident) happened,” he said.

He said even if PF had blocked some voters from accessing polling stations last Thursday, the opposition were still going to lose.

“I was in Chilubi for almost one month, I can assure you that these people (opposition parties) had no serious support, and that is why they lost. In fact, they wanted to even bring confusion or rather violence, but we said, ‘not in this area’ because they wanted to paint a picture that even in Chilubi, there is violence. They were guilty that each time we have elections in their stronghold, there is violence, and each time we have elections in our stronghold, there is no violence. We could have cried and lamented when we lost in Roan because Roan is in our stronghold. Okay, fine, if they blocked, for example, 200 voters in one ward, were they going to win? Even if they blocked 10,000 voters, were they going to win?” Malama wondered.

And Malama said the opposition UPND had remained silent on Seer 1’s fake prophesy because they believed in his magical powers.

“Those people are just used to lamenting, this is why they have not even distanced themselves from Seer 1 because Seer 1 is saying, ‘the MPs for PF came to me and I gave them powers; the UPND also came, but I didn’t give them the powers.’ One can tell that Seer 1 is supporting the UPND and UPND is quiet. How do you remain quiet on a magician? Do you want to govern and gain power with support from a magician? What kind of government are you going to form? How do you get support from someone who has lost direction, he is just a conman! Okay, fine, they are talking about those (black) rings (but) have you seen how many people have got those rings? They are a lot and some of them are businessmen, but you people capture and start showing that picture. Can’t we just be ashamed as a country to dwell on a person like a magician? This is an embarrassment!” said Malama.

“You are lucky some of us are not media persons, and each time you want to interview, you rush to people who always ‘yap’ and think that is news-making and you avoid people who are real, who want to give you a clear picture. It’s the same people in these media and you get the same stories! If you are interviewing (Chishimba) Kambwili, just know that he will be attacking President (Edgar) Lungu and you leave a lot of important things.”