Caritas Zambia vows to uphold strategy for 2011 elections

Caritas Zambia vows to uphold strategy for 2011 elections
By Mwala Kalaluka
Fri 19 Mar. 2010, 03:40 CAT

CARITAS Zambia has vowed that they will not be cowed by threats, accusations and innuendos aimed at discouraging them from concretising their Election 2011 Strategy.

Caritas Zambia head - justice and peace - Milimo Mwaba stated in a press release yesterday that since the organisation launched the Elections 2011 Strategy, some sections of society had come out to discourage them from undertaking the project which was started in good faith.

“As a faith-based organisation, we strongly believe that democracy requires popular and active participation of citizens in governance processes. This includes citizens’ involvement in the electoral process,” Mwaba stated. “We believe this will address the problems of low levels of participation in governance by the citizenry which is evidenced by voter apathy, low number of registered voters, weak capacity of citizens to engage in public policy issues and lack of political will to implement public policies such as electoral reforms by government.”

Mwaba stated that though civic education was a responsibility of the government, its limited capacity to create awareness amongst citizens on civic matters had made it hard for people to participate effectively in the electoral process.

“That is why Caritas Zambia has placed civic education as one of its core activities in the promotion of justice and peace in the country,” she stated. “We cannot continue to overlook the current gaps in the way in which most of our elections have been conducted which has subsequently led to the problems that we have before, during and after elections.”

Mwaba charged that only those that had something to hide could refuse to support such a just cause, which she indicated from inception did not look at political parties but at improving the conduct and participation in elections.

“People need to realize that the quality of elections that we conduct also has an impact on the leadership in government,” Mwaba stated.

“Our voters need to become responsible voters who vote not out of manipulation but out of free will. We need voters who will stand up and say no to vote buying and other malpractices that have been going on during elections. We cannot ignore the fact that voting has become a very important issue in our country.”

Mwaba announced that Caritas Zambia would monitor the Milanzi and Mufumbwe parliamentary by-elections.

“We have embarked on civic education in most areas. Our role shall not be limited to the voting day and results but shall look at the entire election process,” stated Mwaba. “We also call upon ECZ to show us that they have the ability to conduct free and fair elections which are devoid of corruption and violence. The police should also act fairly and give equal treatment to all the political parties that will participate in these elections.”