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Catholic Church to monitor 2011 polls

Catholic Church to monitor 2011 polls
By Masuzyo Chakwe
Thu 04 Mar. 2010, 04:50 CAT

ZAMBIA Episcopal Conference (ZEC) secretary general Fr Joe Komakoma has said accountability and transparency should be at the core of whatever people do publicly, whether as politicians or ordinary citizens.

During the launch of the Caritas Zambia 2011 Election Strategy at Kapingila Guest House, Fr Komakoma said the Catholic Church would for the first time take part in the monitoring of elections.

He said since Caritas Zambia was part of the Catholic Church in Zambia, the Church remained independent and as an institution would never support any political party.

Fr Komakoma said the role of the Church in its involvement in the electoral process was to promote good governance and ensure that people started voting for credible leaders who would develop the country.

He said the issue of elections had remained contentious in Zambian politics due to lack of confidence in the electoral process.

Fr Komakoma explained that the aim of the elections strategy was to ensure that there were effective and acceptable electoral laws and practices in place, which were adhered to by all stakeholders to rekindle citizens’ confidence and participation in the electoral process.

“Caritas Zambia realises that there are gaps in the current electoral laws which are unfairly exploited and reduce the quality of elections and democratic governance.

There is also persistent lack of government commitment to implement, not only the recommended means to ensure equity in the electoral process but also political will to implement its own developed policy guidelines,” he said.

Fr Komakoma said it was hoped that through this exercise, the church would contribute to the attainment of a credible and conducive electoral process leading up to the 2011 elections.

He said Caritas Zambia was committed to address all aspects of the electoral process rather than focusing on the 2011 elections as an event.

He named the components of the projects as preparations and establishing structures for the elections programme, lobbying, advocacy and liaison and continuous civic and voter education.

Fr Komakoma named the other components as outreach and networking activities where Caritas Zambia would proactively engage with other like- minded civil society organisations in contributing to the attainment of a credible electoral process ahead of the 2011 elections.

He said Caritas Zambia intended to engage in public and stakeholder consultations and package an issues and demands document to be dubbed People’s Manifesto that would be subsequently used in advocacy and sensitization of the electorate on policy issues that political parties and government should consider and attend to if they were to be worthy of people’s votes.

Fr Komakoma said a growing number of literature on Zambian political parties pointed to the fact that many political parties in Zambia were weak and lacked key elements to become ideal democratic political parties.

“It is a reality that most political parties in Zambia have a generally weak internal democracy and there is an over emphasis on loyalty to the party, especially to the party leaders; some parties have tended to have self appointed leaders with very limited internal debate on key issues. Information is not easily shared, nor widely disseminated. Documents such as party constitutions or manifesto are not easily obtained or are a preserve of a few,” said Fr Komakoma.

And Caritas Zambia executive director Sam Mulafulafu said one of the areas of work was to promote intra-party democracy.

Mulafulafu said many political parties were fraught with many problems to deal with intra party democracy where there was hardly free flow of information whether in the ruling or opposition political parties.

Mulafulafu said party leaders in political parties were the centre of the political parties’ life and anyone who challenged them was marginalised or removed from the party.

Mulafulafu said there was a tendency to export bad practices from the parties into governance.

And Electoral Commission of Zambia public relations manager Chris Akufuna said the voter registration exercise would be conducted in all provinces and not selected ones.

Labels: 2011 ELECTIONS, CATHOLIC CHURCH, ELECTIONS, POLLING

posted by MrK @ 7:55 PM