Maravi

Zambia is at brink of dictatorship – Habasonda

Zambia is at brink of dictatorship – Habasonda
By David Chongo in Solwezi
Wed 24 Nov. 2010, 04:01 CAT

LEE Habasonda says Zambia is at the brink of dictatorship if people continue shunning the electoral processes. Habasonda, who is executive director of Southern Africa Centre for Constructive Resolution of Disputes (SACCORD), said in an interview that there was need to reverse the trend in order to prevent perpetual incompetence in political governance.

He said people were not registering as voters because they were “fatigued” as a result of politicians not delivering on promises.

“Our democracy will become a sham if people do not register as voters. It will encourage incompetence in leaders. We think if they register, that’s the only way to kick out the incompetence that has become the scenario of the day. The electoral system in Zambia has never given the people the chance to make their truest choices,” he said.

Habasonda said the Ministry of Home Affairs should be given a supplementary budget to continue the issuance of National Registration Cards needed to register as a voter so that the Electoral Commission of Zambia could capture more people.

“The Ministry of Home Affairs has not done enough to provide National Registration Cards. There is need to rethink the approach so that even one million voters can be captured. The Ministry of home affairs seems ill-prepared to supplement ECZ to capture more voters. Therefore, this exercise should not close until we have at least something close to the 2.5 million potential,” he said.

“The failure of this exercise risks the emergence of conflict in the future; by having the same people accessing the process registration and voting, it means there will be the same politicians perpetually.”

And Habasonda has noted that low political participation in governance issues by people of North Western as shown by the low turnout in voter registration could be attributed to historical marginalisation the region had experienced.

“North Western Province should be given preferential treatment to bring it to speed with the other regions; it has a lot of challenges. I am told in Solwezi there are two mobile voter registration teams; they are supposed to be 11 to cover 98 polling stations,” said Habasonda.

Labels: LEE HABASONDA, SACCORD, VOTER REGISTRATION

posted by MrK @ 6:56 PM