ELECTORAL Commission of Zambia (ECZ) chief electoral officer Patrick Nshindano has warned that the continued harassment of poll staff will lengthen the process of announcing the results.
And the Commission has dispelled allegations that it announced wrong results for Feira Constituency.
Speaking at a press briefing, Saturday, Nshindano called on stakeholders to avoid harassing the poll staff and to allow them to conduct their work.
“The continued harassment of poll staff, please do not allow the Commission to act. Do not force us to act. Leave our poll staff alone, let them do their job professionally. When they are tallying, allow them to conclude the tallying at the polling stations. The more you harass them, the longer the process of announcing results is going to take,” Nshindano said.
“It is extremely saddening, if you look at these men and women who are working tirelessly to execute their mandate professionally, in addition to that, they have to be subjected to all manner of harassment, that is unacceptable. The same can be said about Nakatindi (Hall) without the person being whisked away, God knows what would have happened to that individual. Please allow them to do their work. And our call to the women and men in uniform, please arrest anybody who is harassing poll staff. You will have yourself to blame if the process at a particular polling station is not in conformity with what is laid down. The Commission will proceed to invalidate that poll.”
Nshindano said the Commission was still tallying over 1,000 polling stations.
“We had indicated that the next update will be at 11:00 hours, we would like to advise that this will be done at 12:00 hours. We still have a number of polling stations that are still tallying and these are close to over 1,300 polling stations. With Lusaka accounting for the highest number of those polling stations yet to conclude,” he said.
And the Commission has dispelled allegations that it announced wrong results for Feira Constituency.
“The Commission would like to dispel allegations that are going round that it announced wrong results for Feira Constituency. The announced results by the Commission are based on proper paper trail from the polling stations to the totaling centre and these include the Gen 20 A which all political parties I am sure by now should be familiar with at the polling stations and indeed the Gen 21 at the totaling center. This is further supported by records of proceedings and indeed this process is not what somebody thinks the results should be, but what the result is, starting from the polling station to the totaling center. And all polling agents sign off the Gen 21. If your polling agents were not there at the totaling centre, it is not the fault of the Commission, you are guided that you have representatives,” said Nshindano.
Meanwhile, PF secretary general Davies Mwila raised a concern that the party was not privy to the Gen 20 forms and that their polling agents were abducted and chased in some provinces.
In response, the Commission said it would look into the matter.
