Ordering the opposition to vacate areas during campaign season!

By Daily Revelation Editor

Opposition political parties are complaining that President Hakainde Hichilema is frustrating their campaign programmes by inserting himself in their pre-arranged and agreed upon campaign schedules.

Over the weekend, Citizens First leader Harry Kalaba complained in phone call to Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) chairperson Mwangala Zaloumis that his campaign programmes were being frustrated by President Hichilema, starting with Northern Province and then Luapula Province.

It’s important first of all to understand the reasoning behind the decision by the ECZ to come up with a campaign timetable for presidential candidates. The Commission argued that the move had been taken in order to avoid clashes and provocations.

However, the programme left out the incumbent President Hakainde Hichilema as it was argued that the UPND presidential candidate is the incumbent President.

The ECZ explained that they would assist the UPND and government in coordinating the President’s activities with those of the other candidates during the campaigns.

First things first. We have to be clear that the President cannot have a programme created for him as he has to discharge the national duties that he was mandated and elected to perform, and that means that he can be in whatever place he needs to be at any particular time. We also need to place it on record that the public engagements the President is mostly undertaking especially during this period are campaigns in every sense of the word.

We must also remind the President that he lives in a real world whose uneven playing field he has experienced before as an opposition leader. Given that background, it should not be humanely difficult for him to work towards limiting the uneven playing field. It should actually be in his own interests in the furtherance of democracy to actually go out of his way in terms of accommodating even the harshest of his critics, especially during this campaign season where his other competitors have been given limited days within which to campaign in any particular province. It’s five days actually, which is not even enough to traverse the expanse of these huge provinces.

And by the very fact that the timetable is not affecting him, it also follows that his party, the ruling UPND, which is a major participant in this election, has not been affected by the ECZ timetable. Now if the motivation behind coming up with the timetable is to avoid clashes and provocations, is ECZ suggesting that there can never be any potential for conflict where the President and his supporters are?

Actually, if the UPND administration claims to have ended the political violence from the PF era, they should be confident that the same tranquility that they have brought about in the country will persist even in situations where political parties were to campaign in the same area. They should trust the police to keep the peace that the UPND has brought about in this country.

Elections are not just about printing ballots and casting the votes. For them to be said to be free and fair, they must meet the standards to meet the criteria of free and fair elections. This involves ensuring that candidates are given the freedom to canvass for votes wherever and whenever they wish to canvass for those votes. The President should actually be happy were he to campaign in the same space as his opponents for instance, as opposed to the situation where candidates are ordered to vacate areas from where he is going..

There should be no need for instance to ask Brian Mundubile and Makebi Zulu to vacate Chipata, or seal off Mpezeni Park when they want to hold campaign meetings in any given area, since the UPND administration has restored peaceful campaigns as the President constantly proclaims.