Maravi

Electoral official blames political parties, NGOs for voter apathy

Electoral official blames political parties, NGOs for voter apathy
By Chibaula Silwamba in Petauke
Saturday June 09, 2007 [04:00]

ELECTORAL Commission of Zambia (ECZ) commissioner Joseph Jelasi has blamed political parties and NGOs for the voter apathy and spoiled ballot papers that characterised the Kapoche by-election. In an interview after the elections, Jelasi, who headed the ECZ team to the Kapoche by-election, said political parties did not do enough to educate people on the importance of the elections. About 13,700 out of about 27,500 registered voters cast their votes while 276 votes were spoiled. This is less than 50 percent of the total number of registered voters.

“The political parties themselves don’t seem to do much in voter education. It’s their responsibility to sensitise the people thoroughly,” Jelasi said. “They should not just do it a few days before elections and should not just concentrate on talking about the mistakes of their opponents.”

He advised political parties to make early decisions on the persons they wanted to field as a candidates so that the voters and ECZ knew them well in advance.

Jelasi said some NGOs engaged in electoral process were mere armchair critics.

“I expected the NGOs to be very active in Kapoche but there was conspicuous absence of NGOs. NGOs are armchair critics that just issue statements in newspapers,” Jelasi observed. “But they are supposed to be in the field sensitising the people and monitoring the elections.”

He said the NGOs did not even take advantage of the two community radio stations in Petauke to reach a wider audience to educate the people on the electoral process.

Jelasi observed that people were getting tired of by-elections. “People were asking me, ‘why are we having elections again but we had elections recently? What is it for?’ So the impression I am getting is that people are tired of by-elections,” said Jelasi. “So people should be sufficiently educated about by-elections.”

Labels: BY-ELECTIONS, ECZ, NGOs

posted by MrK @ 3:23 AM