By Patson Chilemba
Colonel Panji Kaunda says the election monitors who are coming in at the 11th hour are just wasting their time and money, saying there is nothing they can do to reverse the damage with less than a month to go before the elections
Speaking with Daily Revelation, Col Panji said the European Union and other election monitors coming into the country will not achieve anything, saying if at all they wanted to assist the country, they should focus more on helping to ensure that Zambia has a free and fair system.
He said if the monitors cared to know, they should just take a glimpse at the coverage in the public media, where those in the opposition were being blocked without any recourse to the attacks they were receiving from the ruling party.
“Our friends from the EU who have come to monitor elections I don’t see any good that they will do to the elections during this time. The damage is not done on election day but years before that. The opposition have no access to public media where they can air views to counter what government is doing against them,” Col Panji said. “In my view, if EU want to help they should help us have a free and fair system. Zambians don’t fight on Election Day, they fight and beat each other before elections. But coming at the 11th hour is a waste of money.”
Col Panji said President Lungu is touring the country, pretending to be monitoring development projects around the county, but meanwhile he is campaigning and attacking his opponents daily.
“He’s supposed to be monitoring projects but he’s campaigning, accusing others of privatisation, but they don’t have the opportunity to counter what he is saying,” he said.
Col Panji said politicians were today kneeling before the Zambian people, but they would assume the position of bosses once they were elected, saying it was up to Zambians to put away partisanship and demand that the people they voted for operated according to the aspirations of the electorate.
“We must demand what we want as individuals to be done to this country,” Col Panji said, adding that the situation such as the one that has been exposed with the advent of Covid-19 of a class society must not be entertained.
He said while some privileged children in privileged schools have continued with online lessons, those from poor backgrounds did not have that same facility, and risked remaining further behind their well to do friends.
“The child of Panji is learning online, the child of Patson is learning online, but what about the other children? What we don’t have is leadership. Let’s not have leadership next month that will only talk about government contracts,” said Col Panji, adding that people must seriously scrutinise what the politicians were saying and vote for those they felt were serious with their promises.
