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Rupiah, MMD will lose - Nawakwi

Rupiah, MMD will lose - Nawakwi
By Chibaula Silwamba
Sun 13 Mar. 2011, 04:01 CAT

MMD’s defeat in the Mporokoso parliamentary by-election is an indicator that President Banda and the ruling party will lose the forthcoming tripartite elections, says Edith Nawakwi. And Nawakwi said the government’s rejection of the parallel voter tabulation (PVT) raises suspicion that they want to manipulate the election result.

In an interview, Nawakwi who is leader of the Forum for Democracy and Development (FDD), said it was a wake-up call for President Banda and the MMD that they had lost a parliamentary election just about three to six months before presidential, parliamentary and local government elections.“This is an indicator; it’s very clear that they are going to lose the elections,” Nawakwi said.

She said despite President Banda and the MMD claiming that the government had built clinics, schools and other infrastructure, people were speaking through the ballot that they were not impressed.

The opposition PF beat the MMD in the Mporokoso parliamentary by-election on March 3.

Nawakwi questioned President Banda for surrounding himself with his fellow easterners - presidential spokesperson Dickson Jere, MMD Lusaka Province chairperson William Banda and MMD spokesperson Dora Siliya - as his press team.

Nawakwi said Siliya had created more enemies outside MMD when she became party spokesperson and that Siliya did not defend her fellow women as shown when she sided with MMD Lusaka Province youth chairperson Chris Chalwe and his cohorts who threatened to gang rape her.

Nawakwi said Siliya, William Banda and President Banda were not there when she and others were forming the MMD, which they now wanted to champion as their party. She wondered why former works and supply minister Mike Mulongoti was now denouncing the MMD when in fact he had been defending the ruling party’s rot for a long time.

“When did he realise that the MMD was rotten? Mulongoti was part of the garbage in MMD,” Nawakwi said.

And Nawakwi said parallel voter tabulation (PVT) was used in almost all elections across Africa and wondered why the Zambian government was opposed to the exercise. She denounced President Banda's government for attacking US Ambassador to Zambia Mark Storella, who has indicated that the US government would support the PVT process in the forthcoming tripartite elections.

Nawakwi said even if the government did not want the PVT, the FDD wants the support from donors to carry out its own PVT.

And President Banda on Tuesday hinted that Zambia would hold the tripartite elections before September.

Labels: 2011 ELECTIONS, DORA SILIYA, EDITH NAWAKWI, MMD, RUPIAH BANDA

posted by MrK @ 12:29 PM