By Daily Revelation Correspondent
Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) chairperson Mwangala Zaloumis’ last minute intervention with the police enabled Citizens First (CF) leader Harry Kalaba to hold his rally in Ndola late in the evening today after police had stopped the gathering from proceeding and forced some of the huge crowds that had gathered to disperse.
Trouble started earlier in the afternoon when three plain clothed police officers arrived at the Chipulukusu school grounds ordering the CF staffers who were mounting the stand to stop as the rally was not going to proceed.
The police in the process picked up the Ndola CF district chairperson Juvas Simwanza and other officials and ordered them to accompany them to the police station as they had not been given a permit to conduct the rally.
But Kalaba’s campaign manager Stanley Mhango, who had just arrived on the scene told the officials to immediately disbambark from the police vehicle telling them that they were going nowhere. He said the same police had given them permission to hold the rally on Thursday after they stopped their roadshows in the city a few days earlier.
As the the back and forth continued, one of the officers called someone he only identified as the officer-in-charge at Ndola Central police Miyanda Siyanga.
Siyanga directed his junior to pass on the phone to Mhango so that he could directly tell him that the meeting was not going to proceed.
Mhango in turn called Kalaba to inform him about the happenings. Kalaba in turn phoned Zaloumis to explain the unfolding situation to her, complaining that police were always standing in his way and trying to destabilise his programmes.
As Kalaba was talking to Zaloumis on the other end, from the other side of the city in Chipulukusu, Siyanga arrived at the school grounds and told Mhango that they could not proceed with the rally because they had instructions from ECZ that once a party had left the district they could not come back again. He also told Mhango that they could not come to a district where the Republican President Hakainde Hichilema had just left having addressed his rally just yesterday.
But Mhango told the officer that he would not accept his terms and was not going to prescribe to CF how they should conduct their campaigns in their allocated five days on the Copperbelt. He told the officer that he was “playing” to suggested what he was he was suggesting.
But shortly afterwards, the officers received a call from their superiors after Zaloumis had intervened and told them to respect the days allocated to the CF to conduct their campaigns in the province.
By the time the matter was being resolved it was already late in the afternoon approaching evening and the rally was allowed to proceed. But some in the huge crowds that gathered had already gone home after police had earlier insisted that the rally would not proceed.
“Their presence made people fear and they walked away and we delayed starting the meeting to late evening,” said Mhango.
When starting to address the meeting, Kalaba apologised to the people telling them that police had made every effort to have the rally not held because they don’t want other voices to be heard except the UPND’s. He said that was why they had started the meeting late.
